ORIGIN OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.

THE life of Jesus has become the center of the religious
controversies which agitate our age. The importance of this fact is great. At
its foundation lies the confession that Christianity is not grounded so much on
the doctrines of Him from whom it receives its name as upon his person. Every
acceptation of the word Christianity which is antagonistic to this confession,
disowns the real character of the term, and rests on a misconception. The person
of Jesus is the corner-stone on which the church bases its foundations; to it
the doctrine of Jesus and of his disciples always and with the utmost
distinctness points; with the person of Jesus Christianity stands or falls. To
rob this person of his greatness,—24of that greatness which the entire church ascribes
to him under the name Son of God,—and yet to think to retain the Christian faith
and the Christian church, is a futile attempt, a vain mockery. Even the morality
which some might hope to rescue from the general shipwreck of faith is weakened
by the unavoidable and remorseless contradictions which arise; for if the morality
is sound, it must be a good tree growing from a diseased root. The life of Jesus
is the most momentous of all questions which the church has to encounter,—the
one which is decisive whether it shall or shall not live.

Whence do we derive our
knowledge of the life of Jesus? Almost exclusively from our four Gospels, in which
the divine person of Jesus, the center of the Christian belief, and the main object
too of all attacks upon it, is presented in essentially the same light as in the
Epistles of Paul, unquestionably the oldest of all the apostolical documents. All
else that we know of him is confined to a few expressions and acts, and, with unimportant exceptions, 25is in direct connection with, and dependence
on, the Gospels. By far the most of these sources are to be found in apocryphal,
i.e. not genuine, untrustworthy fragments, not bearing the true names of their authors,
and aiming with more or less skill to supplement and complete the gospel narrative;
others, partly of Jewish and partly of heathen origin, avow at the very outset the
intention of assailing the Gospels. Finally, we possess in two classic writers of
the first and the two following centuries, Tacitus and Pliny, a few incidental expressions
which have a lasting interest: the first88Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. testifying that Christ, the founder of
the religion which had gained so strong a hold even in Nero's time, had been punished
with death by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius; while
Pliny asserts99Pliny's Epist. x. 97. in a communication to Trajan that the Christians, already a numerous
body in Bithynia, were in the habit of singing songs of praise to Christ as to a
God.1010The statement of Suetonius (Claud. 25), that Claudius
(about 52 after Christ) banished the Jews from Rome because, incited by Christ,
they made a perpetual uproar, ought hardly to be cited here. Our Gospels therefore, if not the only authorities relative to the life of
Jesus, are by all odds the most 26important ones, and the only direct sources that
are in existence. If then the life of Jesus is only made known to us by the Gospels,
if we are directed to these books for the solution of all our questions about the
birth, the activities, the conversation, character, and fortunes of Jesus, we have
of course no less weighty an inquiry before us than this, Whence spring our Gospels?
For upon the origin of these books hinge their trustworthiness and all their value.

So much depending upon this first step, very many are the investigations which have
been made in these modern times into the origin of the Gospels. It has been a question
with what justice the names of those prominent members of the twelve, Matthew and
John, and the names of the helpers and followers, Mark and Luke, have been assigned
to the four Gospels. Just so far as the authorship of these documents has been admitted
as due to those revered men, the Gospels have been accepted as authentic and trustworthy
records of the life of the Lord. Their names have been regarded 27as a satisfactory guaranty that, in the writings with
which they were coupled, truth only could be sought, that in them truth only was
wished, and that in them truth was authentically recorded. There is indeed another
way of testing the reliability of the Gospels. After the rise of the rationalizing
or rationalistic spirit, and when the attempt was made to set the reason of man
above everything which had previously borne the name of Divine Revelation, hands
were laid at once on the biblical miracles, and it was claimed that they must be
explained by the light of the imperfect culture of that time, and the incorrect
appreciation of the Old Testament. Out of this grew the theory of accommodation,
as it was called, which asserted that Jesus made his words chime in with the expectations
of his age, and that he gave himself out to be a more important personage than he
really was. This theory of the rise of the Gospels has culminated in the piece of botchwork which issued from the Paris press
in 1863. The author of that book, not
troubling himself with any speculations respecting 28the share which the apostles may have had in delineating
the gospel portraits, but following his own self-imposed theories about miracles
and revelation, has displayed boundless recklessness and given way to the most unbridled phantasies respecting the gospel
history, caricaturing both it and its hero. He
has written a book which has much more the character of a shameless calumny of Jesus
than of an honest investigation into his career. Can we apply the term historical
inquiry to an attempt to show1111Renan,
p. xxvii. On est tenté de croire que Jean . . . fut froissé de voir qu’on ne lui accordait
pas dans l’histoire du Christ une assez grande place; qu’alors il commença
à dicter
une foule de choses qu’il savait mieux que les autres, avec l’intention de montrer
que, dans beaucoup de cas où on ne parlait que de Pierre, il avait figuré avec et avant lui. that John wrote the fourth Gospel out of a spirit
of self-love, not without jealousy of Peter,1212Page xxvii. N’excluant pas une certaine rivalité de
l’auteur avec Pierre. and full of hatred to Judas Iscariot?1313Page xxvii. Sa haine contre Judas, haine antérieure
peut-être a la trahison.
Can we dignify by so high a term as scientific investigation such a theory as his
respecting the cause of the sympathy felt for Jesus by the wife of Pilate, that
she saw the "gentle Galilean," the "fine-looking young man," from a window of the
palace that looked out on the temple-court, and that in consequence the thought
that his blood was to be spilled rested like a mountain load upon her soul?1414Page 403. Selon une tradition Jésus auralit trouvé un
appui dans la propre femme du procurateur. Celle-ci avait pu entrevoir le doux Galiléen
de quelque fenêtre du palais, donnant sur les cours du temple. Peut-être le revitelle
en songe, et le sang de ce beau jeune homme, qui allait être versé, lui donna-t-il
le cauchemar. To
cite one or two more examples of his 29mode of dealing with the Gospels, what shall we say of
his manner of treating the raising of Lazarus, where he endeavors to show that Jesus,
whose role was becoming more and more difficult every day, practiced an involuntary
piece of deception upon the people and the credulous sisters of Lazarus? His theory
is that the latter, while still sick, caused himself to be laid out for burial,
and deposited in the family vault; that Jesus, wishing to see his friend once more,
caused the tomb to be opened, and on seeing Lazarus come forth was himself led to
believe that the dead man had come to life again,—the power of resuscitating him,
meanwhile, being ascribed by the witnesses to the wonderful gifts of Jesus.1515Page 361. Peut-être Lazare, pâle encore de sa maladie,
se fit-il entourer de bandelettes comme un mort et enfermer dans son tombeau de
famille. . . . L’emotion qu’éprouva Jésus près du tombeau de son ami, qu’il croyait
mort, put être prise par les assistants pour ce trouble, ce frémissement qui accompagnaient
les miracles; l’opinion populaire voulant que la vertu divine fût dans l’homme comme
un principe épileptique et convulsif. Jésus . . . désira voir encore une fois celui
qu’il avait aimé, et, la pierre ayant été écartée, Lazare sortit avec ses bandelettes
et la tête entourée d’un suaire . . . Intimement persuadés que Jésus
était thaumaturge,
Lazare et ses deux sœurs purent aider un de ses miracles a s’exécuter . . . . L’état
de leur conscience etait celui des stigmatisées, des convulsionnaires, des possédées
de couvent. . . . Quant à Jesus, il n’était pas plus maître que Saint Bernard, que
saint François d’Assise de modérer l’avidité de la foule et de ses propres disciples
pour le merveilleux. La mort, d’ailleurs, allait dans quelques jours lui rendre
sa liberté divine, et l’arracher aux fatales nécessités
d’un rôle qui chaque jour devenait plus exigeant, plus difficile à soutenir. Or
what shall we say of a theory of the conflict in Gethsemane,1616Matt. xxvi. 36, et sq.; Mark xiv. 32, et sq.;
Luke xxii. 40, et sq.
which seeks to throw
light on the Saviour's grief by such words as these: "Perhaps his thoughts were
running back to the clear springs of Galilee where he had often found refreshment,
to the vine-stock and the fig-tree beneath whose shade he had rested, to the young
maidens who it may be had responded to his love. Did he curse 30his hard fate, which denied him all the old joys
of his life? Did he lament his high call, and weep, a sacrifice on the altar of
his own greatness, that he had not continued to be a simple Nazarene artisan?"1717Page 378, et sq.
What shall we think of the supposition that the dreary landscape of Judæa—with
Jerusalem, the sacred center of the Jewish faith and worship—drove the thoughts
of the Galilean to the luxuriance of his own country's hills, and added to his grief?1818Page 209. La profonde sécheresse
de la nature aux environs de Jérusalem devait ajouter an déplaisir de Jésus. What shall we say of his exclamation, that if a better understanding of Christianity
is to prevail among men, and the apocryphal shrines which now claim veneration are
to be superseded by authentic ones, the temple, the great church for all Christians,
is to be built upon the hill of Nazareth,— the soil beneath which are sleeping
the carpenter Joseph and thousands of Nazarenes?1919Page 28. Si jamais le monde resté chrétien,
mais arrivé à une notion
meilleure de ce qui constitue le respect des origines, veut remplacer par d’authentiques
lieux saints les sanctuaires apocryphes et mesquins où s’attachait la piété
des âges grossiers, c’est sur cette hauteur de Nazareth qu’il bâtira son temple.
Là, au point d’apparition du christianisme et au centre d’action de son fondateur,
devrait s’élever la grande église où tous les chrétiens pourraient prier.
Là aussi, sur cette terre où dorment le charpentier Joseph et des milliers de Nazaréens
oubliés. What shall we say to the crudest
of all Renan's vagaries, the investing with the crown of immortality and the glittering
halo of a saint the head of that Jew dying on the cross, at the outset a mere kindly
poetical enthusiast, and at last an idolizing fanatic, 31involved irretrievably with the dominant party, and
rushing willingly into the arms of death?2020Page 426. Sa tête s’inclina sur sa poitrine,
et il expira.
Repose maintenant dans ta gloire, noble initiateur. Ton œuvre est achevée; ta
divinité est fondée. Ne crains plus de voir crouler par une faute
l’édifice de tes efforts. Page 67. Toute
l’historie
du christianisme naissant est devenue de la sorte une délicieuse pastorale. Un Messie
aux repas de noces, la courtisane et le bon Zachée appelés à ses festins, les fondateurs
du royaume du ciel comme un cortége de paranymphes. Page 219. Le charmant docteur,
qui pardonnait à tous pourvu qu’on l’aimât, ne pouvait trouver beaucoup d’écho dans
ce sanctuaire des vaines disputes et des sacrifices vieillis. Page 222. L’orgueil
du sang lui paraît l’ennemi capital qu’il faut combattre. Jésus, en d’autres termes,
n'est plus juif. Il est révolutionnaire au plus haut degré; il appelle tous les
hommes â un culte fondé sur leur seule qualité d’enfants de Dieu. Page 316. Parfois
on est tenté de croire que, voyant dans sa propre mort un moyen de fonder son royaume,
il conçut de propos délibéré le dessein de se faire tuer. D’autres fois la mort
se présente à lui comme un sacrifice, destiné à apaiser son Père et
à sauver les
hommes. Un goût singulier de persécution et de supplices le pénétrait. Son sang
lui paraissait comme l’eau d’un second baptême dont il devait être baigné, et il
semblait possédé d’une hâte étrange d’aller au-devant de ce baptême qui seul pouvait
étancher sa soif.

Surely it requires no further citations
to justify the expression of a condemnation of Renan's book: these few instances
are sufficient to put the reader in possession of materials adequate to enable him
to judge of the character of the work. That, in spite of its frivolous pretenses
to science, in spite of its fantastic caricatures of history, it has found such
favor and endorsement in Germany, only shows how widely are diffused, even in Germany,
the lack of sound criticism, and of acquaintance with biblical history, as well
as the depraved taste of an age which is sunk in unbelief.

In this matter, German
science and scholarship have subjected themselves to a severe reproach. Not only
is the prevalent rationalism, which places our common human reason above a divine
revelation, and so sets aside the supernatural claims of the Gospels, a product
of this French book, but German zeal is aroused, as well, to supply what is lacking
of scientific accuracy in Renan's work, and to make his 32results more trustworthy. And so we have one of
the frightful spectacles of our time,—French levity and German learning reaching
brotherly hands to each other over the fresh grave of the Saviour. Unbelief, it
would seem, gives even more strength than belief.

In those quarters where regard
is paid to historical authority, one of the points brought into the foreground in
the attacks upon the authenticity of the Gospels, is the lack of early evidence
that they were in existence at the opening of the Christian era. Nor can any one
deny that this objection, if it can be maintained, is entitled to much weight. If
it is as late as the year 150, or still later, that we receive the first tidings
about John's Gospel, who. would not find it hard to believe that it was written
by the beloved disciple of the Lord a half century before? If there is not in our
possession evidence in support of the other Gospels dating from that time, or from
the years just preceding it, who can deny that it does not raise doubts respecting
their authenticity? It is true, we must take into account the paucity of the literature 33which comes down to us from
the earlier epoch of the church; and besides, many a good book might have been
written without verbally incorporating or directly using our Gospels; especially
at a time when those who had been eye-witnesses had not been long dead; when the
life of the churches was directly sustained by the spirit of the Gospels; and when
the written letter had not begun to be dominant over the living evangel. If
these
considerations diminish the importance which might be attached to the absence of
biblical quotations in the primitive Christian literature, yet it is clear, on
the
other hand, that if such quotations are really to be found there, the manifest acquaintance
which they might show that men had with the Gospels in the first half of the second
century must be of the greatest weight in establishing their age, their apostolical
origin, and their genuineness. And therefore it is a sacred duty that those who
would subject the authenticity of our Gospels to a thorough scrutiny, should make
one of their chief duties a most careful investigation into the most ancient 34sources of testimony respecting
the existence and
the recognized credibility of the records of Jesus' life.

It seems to me that this
duty has been by no means faithfully enough most for the first three so-called synoptical
Gospels, and still less for that of John, whose want of authenticity has been inscribed
in flaming letters upon the banners of the negative school. The writer of these
lines imposes upon himself the task of trying to throw some light upon the authority
of the evangelical documents, although in preparing the work not for special students,
but cultivated Christians generally, it may not be possible to enter so exhaustively
into the subject as under other circumstances might be desirable.

We can make as
our starting-point the unquestioned fact that in the last decades of the second
century our four Gospels were known and acknowledged in all portions of the
church.
Irenæus, from 177 on, Bishop of Lyons, where the first Christian church of Gaul
was established, wrote a great work in the last decades 35of the second century, directed at the earliest heresies,
the Gnostic, and on every page made use of the Gospels, providing himself from
them with materials to overthrow a system which was threatening to destroy the
doctrines of the church. The number of passages where he has recourse to the Gospels
is about four hundred, and about eighty of these contain quotations from John. From
the closing decade of the second century on, the able and learned Tertullian lived
and labored at Carthage, in Africa, and in his numerous writings there exist
hundreds
of citations from the text of the Gospels, which he made use of as his most decisive
authorities. The same is true of Clemens, the celebrated teacher in the school of
catechumens at Alexandria, about the end of the second century. Nor must I fail
to allude to a catalogue, generally known by the name of its discoverer, the Italian
scholar, Muratori, of all the books which were regarded as canonical in the very
earliest times. This work was probably prepared at Rome, and shortly after the
time of the Roman bishop Pius, i. e. somewhere 36where between 160 and 170. In
this catalogue of
the books thus reckoned as comprising the New Testament, the four Gospels are
at the head.2121That this was the true date when this catalogue
was proposed, is rendered more certain by the circumstance that the author indicates the episcopate of Pius, which is generally
computed to have extended from 142 to 157, by the words temporibus nostris and
nuperrime,
i. e. "in our time," and "very recently." And even when he follows his own conjectures,
or those which were then general, respecting any matter, as, for example, his ascribing
the "Shepherds," an apocalyptic book of edification, to Hermas the brother of Pius
the Roman bishop, his chronological statements must still be conceded not to have
lost any validity. It is true, the first few lines which relate to Matthew and Mark
have been lost; but, at the close of the still extant words respecting the latter,
the Gospel of Luke is spoken of as the third, and that of John as the fourth; enabling
us to see that even in the very earliest days the order was followed with which
we are so familiar.

I have thus summoned witnesses from Gaul, from proconsular Africa
(the present Algiers), from Alexandria, and from Rome. Two others can be cited
fitly here, although one of them goes back to a remoter date: I mean the two oldest
translations from the Greek text used by the apostles themselves. One of these
is the Syriac version, and bears the name Peshito; the other is the Latin version,
known under the title Itala: both of them give the four Gospels the first place.
The canonical acceptance of all four must unquestionably have been general, as
we see that they were transferred openly, and 37as a whole, into the language of
the newly-converted
Christians, the Latins and Syrians. The Syriac translation, which takes us to the
neighborhood of the Euphrates, is almost universally assigned to the end of the
second century; and, although positive proofs are wanting in support of this date,
yet we are not without good grounds for accepting it. The Latin version, on the
contrary, had begun to gain general recognition even before the end of the second
century; for both Tertullian, in his quotations from Irenæus, and the Latin translator
of Irenæus's great work against heresy, writing about the end of the second century,
make use of the text of the Itala. This, of course, implies that the Latin translation
was made some years before the close of the second century. I shall have occasion
subsequently to allude again to the striking fact that it was necessary to translate
the Gospels into Latin and Syriac as early as the second half of the second century,
and that the number of documents was limited to the four with which we are now
familiar.

Looking a little more closely into the testimony 38of the two great Fathers,
Irenæus and Tertullian,
we have to ask, Can their evidence be so limited in its application as to only prove
that the four Gospels were fully accepted in their day? Irenæus not merely invests
these documents with entire authority in the citations which he makes to overthrow
the Gnostic heretics; it even appears in his work that the Gospels, or rather, to
use his own expression, the fourfoldness of the Gospel, has been conformed to the
analogy of the four quarters of the globe, the four chief winds, the four faces
of the cherubim. He asserts that the four Gospels are the four pillars of which
the church rests as it covers the whole earth, and in this number four he recognizes
a special token of the Creator's wisdom.2222See Iren. adv. hæres. iii. 11: 8. Is such a representation compatible with
the fact that at the time of Irenæus the four Gospels first began to be accepted?
or that an attempt was then being made to append a fourth and newer one to the
three older ones then current? Is it not much more credible that the acceptance
of all the four was then of so long standing and so thoroughly complete, 39that the Bishop of Lyons could allude to the fourfoldness
of the Gospel as a thing universally recognized, and in consequence of this very
recognition speak of it as a thing which harmonizes with great and unchanging
cosmical relations? Irenæus died in the second year after the close of the second
century, but in his youth he had sat at the feet of the venerable Polycarp, who
had been a disciple of John the evangelist, and had been acquainted with many
eyewitnesses of Jesus' life. In mentioning this fact Irenæus2323See Iren. adv. hær. iii. 3: 4; and particularly his letter to Florinus in
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 20 (Iren. opp. ed. Stieren i. 822). alludes very tenderly
to the statement of his revered teacher Polycarp, that all that he had heard
from the lips of John and other disciples of Jesus coincided fully with the written
account. Yet let us hear his own words as given in a letter to Florinus: "I saw
you while I was yet a youth in Lower Asia with Polycarp, when you were living
in scenes of princely splendor, and when you were striving to gain the approval
of Polycarp. What took place then is fresher in my memory than what has occurred
more recently. What we took in our youth grows up as it were with us, and 40is incorporated in us. And so I can even now bring
back to mind just the place where the good Polycarp used to sit when he talked
to us, how he looked as he came in and as he went out, how he lived, how he
used to speak to the people, how he used to allude to his intercourse with John
and repeat the words of others who had seen the Lord, how he used to recount what
he had heard from their own lips about the miracles and the teachings of the Lord,—and
all in full accordance with the written narrative."2424In the
Latin translation the passage runs: "Vidi enim te, quum adhuc puer (παῖς) essem,
in inferiore Asia apud Polycarpum quum in imperatoria aula splendide ageres et illi
(παρ᾽ αὐτῷ) te probare conareris. Nam ea
quæ
tunc gesta sunt melius memoria teneo,
quam quæ nuper acciderunt (quippe quae pueri discimus, simul cum animo ipso coalescunt
eique penitus inhærent) adeo ut et locum dicere possim in quo sedens beatus Polycarpus
disserebat, processus quoque eius et ingressus vitæque modum et corporis speciem,
sermones denique quos ad multitudinem habebat; et familiarem consuetudinem
quæ
illi cum Iohanne ac reliquis
qui dominum, viderant intercessit, ut narrabat, et qualiter dicta eorum commemorabat:
quæque de domino ex ipsis audiverat de miraculis illius etiam ac de doctrina,
quæ ab iis qui verbum vitæ ipsi conspexerant acceperat Polycarpus, qualiter referebat,
cuncta Scripturis consona." The attempt to make these closing words apply to the
Old Testament, and not to the Gospels, is a most impotent attempt to take away all
point whatever from what Irenæus is saying.

Thus writes Irenæus respecting
his intercourse with Polycarp and respecting the communications of Polycarp. The
date of the young Irenæus's intercourse with the aged saint must be set approximately
at about the year 150. Irenæus died in 202, according to old accounts a martyr,
while Polycarp perished at the stake in 165, "1 after having," to use his own
expression, served the Lord eighty-six years." And is it to be believed that
Irenæus
never heard from his teacher, whose communications respecting John he expressly
refers to, one word regarding 41the Gospel of John? Indisputably, one part of Polycarp's
testimony relative to John's Gospel carries us back to John himself. For Polycarp's
evidence respecting the work of his teacher must be based upon the testimony of
his teacher himself. The case becomes all the more clear the more closely we look
into it on the adversaries' side, and range ourselves with those who deny the validity
of John's Gospel. According to this view, Polycarp, although saying so much to
Irenæus regarding John, did not drop a word regarding the Gospel of John. But
supposing he did not, is it credible that Irenæus fully accepted that Gospel,
that work which seemed to be the noblest gift of John to Christianity, the report
of an eye-witness respecting the life, death, and resurrection of the Saviour
of the world, as a Gospel which ran directly counter to the testimony of the
three other evangelists? Would not the very circumstance that Polycarp made
no mention of it have convinced Irenæus of its want of authenticity? And yet
it is asserted that in order to meet and overthrow false teachers, and the 42men
who falsified the canon, he did not hesitate
to reckon the Gospel of John as strictly embraced among the sacred books.

This
on which I am now laying stress is nothing new; it has long stood recorded on
the pages of Irenæus, and has long been read there. But it has not had its due
weight; else how could it have been so lightly passed over? For my own part I
must completely justify the assigning of much greater weight, on the part of correct
and thorough investigators, to the testimony of Polycarp and Irenæus respecting
the Gospel of John, than to all the difficulties and all the objections urged by
skeptical scholars.

And is the case not similar with Tertullian and his testimony
respecting the Gospel? This man, who had been transformed from a worldly heathen
lawyer into a powerful advocate of divine truth, enters so critically into the
question of the origin and relative value of the four Gospels as expressly to subordinate
Mark and Luke to Matthew and John, on the ground that the former were mere helpers
and companions of the apostles, while the latter were selected 43by the Lord himself and invested with full
authority.2525See adv. Marcion, iv. 2. Constituimus inprimis evangelicum instrumentum apostolos auctores habere,
quibus hoc munus evangelii promuigandi ab ipso domino sit compositum; si et apostolicos,
non tamen solos sed cum apostolis et post apostolos. Denique nobis fidem ex apostolis
Iohannes et Matthæus insinuant, ex apostolicis Lucas et Marcus instaurant.
The same author propounds also an inexpugnable canon of historical criticism,
a test of the truth of the early Christian documents, and especially those of apostolic
origin, in that he makes the value of testimony dependent on the epoch of the witness,
and demands that what was held as true in his day should be judged in the light
of its prior acceptance. If it had been accepted before, it was fair to suppose
that it had been equally accepted in the time of the apostles; its authenticity
must therefore have been admitted by the apostolical church, founded as it was
by the apostles themselves.2626See adv. Marcion, iv. 5. In summa si constat id verius quod prius,
id prius quod et ab initio, ab initio quod ab apostolis, pariter utique constabit
id esse ab apostolis traditum quod apud ecclesias apostolorum fuerit sacrosanctum. And is it to be believed that this
acute man was capable of being deceived in his acceptance of the Gospels and in
his defense of them by any thin web of sophistry or touch of charlatanism? The
passages just referred to are taken from his celebrated reply to Marcion, who in
a wanton and heretical spirit had impugned the authenticity of the Gospels.
Three of the four he had wholly
excluded, and of the fourth he retained only just so much as it pleased 44
him to do. In replying to him, Tertullian expressly bases his argument on the ground that at the time when the apostolical
church
was founded all the four Gospels were accredited. Has such a statement no weight
in the mouth of a man like Tertullian? When he wrote, scarcely a hundred years
had elapsed since the death of John. At that date the testimony, appealed to by
him, of the church at Ephesus, in which John had labored so long and amid which
he had died, must have been full and decisive respecting the genuineness or spuriousness
of John's Gospel. Nor was it a matter of any difficulty to ascertain what was the
judgment which this church passed on the Gospel. And we must not overlook the
fact that we have not to do, in this matter, with a scholar who is contenting
himself with merely learned investigations, but with a man full of earnestness
respecting his faith, and taking very seriously the question of human salvation.
The Christian documents which asserted a connection between themselves and the origin
of the new faith, the documents at which all the worldly wisdom of
45the time in which Tertullian himself was reared
took offense,—were they likely to be accepted by him without inquiry, and in
a blind credulity? And inasmuch as he expressly assures us that he bases his acceptation
of all the four Gospels on the credit of the apostolical church,2727See the document already referred to:
Eadem auctoritas ecclesiarum
ceteris quoque patrocinabitur evangeliis, quæ proinde per illas et secundum illas habemus,
Johannis dico [before
this he says, habemus et Johanni alumnas ecclesias] et Matthæi; licet et Marcus
quod edidit Petri affirmetur, cuius interpres Marcus. Nam et Lucæ digestum Paulo
adscribere solent; capit magistrorum videri quæ discipuli promulgarint. is it not an
unworthy suspicion, the doubting that he made thorough inquiry into the capacity
of the apostolical church to pass an authentic judgment on the Christian documents?

I insist therefore, to sum up the matter, that the testimony of
Irenæus and Tertullian
respecting the four Gospels is not to be taken as an isolated, unrelated fact,
but that it must be considered as a valid result of all the historical evidence
which was at their command. And how far we are justified in this, is shown not
only by the authorities already adduced, the author of the Muratori list of
New Testament books, the African translator of the Gospels into Latin, the originator
of the Itala, but by all the other witnesses who lived prior to the time of Irenæus
and Tertullian. Many of my readers are acquainted with the 46so-called
Harmonies of the Gospels,—the works in
which the four sacred narratives are co-ordinated into a single one. In this way
an effort has been made to draw from the Gospels alone a closely followed and faithful
portrait of our Lord's life, those points which one narrator has brought more prominently
into view than the others being employed as supplementary to the other accounts,
and a complete picture being the result. In these works the narrative of John has
been drawn upon to supply the incidents occurring in the last three years of Jesus'
life, and to follow his course step by step. Harmonies of this kind were prepared
as early as the year 170 by two men whose names are known to us: one of them was
Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch in Syria; the other was Tatian, a disciple of Justin
the great theologian and martyr.2828 Theophilus was appointed bishop of Antioch, according to the statement
of
Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iv. 19 and 20), about the eighth year of Marcus Aurelius's
reign, i. e., about 168, at the same time that Soter was bishop of Rome. The third
book of his able Apology to Autolycus he wrote, according to his own statement,
in the year 181; the first two books in the year 180. It is extremely probable that
the compilation from the Gospels was intended to serve in helping him discharge
his official duties,—at the outset, at least, of his term of service. Tatian himself
tells us (Orat. ad Græc. 19) that when in Rome together with Justin he shared the
persecution experienced by the cynic philosopher Crescens. After Justin had fallen
as a martyr, Tatian left Rome; in Syria, where he lived subsequently, he embraced
the Gnostic heresies; at the time when Irenæus was preparing his work aimed against
this school, i. e. about 177, Tatian does not appear to have been living. Comp.
Iren. adv. hær. 1: 28. Tatian can not have written his celebrated apologetic work,
Addresses to the Heathen, before his teacher's death (166), but he may have done so soon after. In all
probability, however, he had prepared the Diatessaron still earlier. True, both of those works are lost; but Jerome
speaks in the fourth century of the one prepared by Theophilus as still existing,
describing it as a combination of the four Gospels in one continuous narrative;2929See epist. 151 ad Algasiam quæst. 5. Theophilus . . . qui quatuor evangelistarum
in unum opus dicta compingens ingenii sui nobis monimenta reliquit, hæc super hac
parabola [the one respecting the Unjust Steward] in suis commentariis locutus est.
respecting the second we have the testimony of 47Eusebius3030See Euseb. Histor. Eccles. iv. 29. and
Theodoret,3131See Theodoret. hæret. fab. i. 20. the latter of
whom speaks with
intimate knowledge. Tatian himself alludes to his work as "the Gospel made up of
four, the Diatessaron." Both of these men wrote other works which are still extant.
In 180 and 181 Theophilus indited the three books to Autolycus, a learned heathen
who had assailed Christianity. In this work are extracts from Matthew, Luke,
and John. It is especially noteworthy that he cites the latter (ii. 22),
alluding
explicitly to the name of the author. His words are, "This is taught by the Holy
Scriptures and all inspired men, among whom is John, who says, 'In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God,' and then follows, 'and the Word was God:
all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made."'
This makes it certain that the Harmony of Theophilus embraced the Gospel of John.3232Jerome, in the passage already cited, as well
as elsewhere (in his Catalogus de Viris Illustribus), alludes to Theophilus as the
author of a commentary on the Gospel (a term applied, according to the usage of
that time, to the four Gospels co-ordinated into a single narrative), and even makes
use of it in explaining the parable of the Unjust Steward; it is very probable,
therefore, that this commentary was bound up with the Gospels.
The same is true of Tatian: for in his Addresses to the Heathen, a work filled with
learning, and very decided in its tone, written probably between 166 and 170, there
are several passages 48quoted from John's Gospel, such as this: "The
Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. . . . . The Life
was the Light of men. . . . . All things were made by him, and without him was not
anything made that was made." From this it would seem certain that his Harmony,
like that of Theophilus, although it may have taken some liberties with the order
of the narrative, included the Gospel of John: and this chimes admirably with the
statement of Bishop Bar Salibi, that the Diatessaron of Tatian, accompanied by a
commentary by Ephraim, and thus discriminated from the Diatessaron of Ammonius,
began with the words, "In the beginning was the Word."

These Harmonies last mentioned,
one of which must with much probability be ascribed to a date within the first sixty
years of the second century, have far more worth than what would be gathered from
single scattered extracts, for their preparation points back conclusively to a time
when the four Gospels were already accepted as a perfect record,
and when the
necessity had begun to be felt of deducing a higher 49unity and a more harmonious completeness from them than
the diversity of the various books and the apparent discrepancies had rendered apparent.
If these efforts are to be assigned to a date as early as the second decade subsequently
to the middle of the second century, it makes the inference a necessary one that
the use and recognition of the four Gospels must be assigned to a much earlier date.

Similar testimony we owe to a cotemporary of the two men just named, Claudius Apollinaris,
Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, whose epoch is assigned by Eusebius (iv. 26) to
the reign of Marcus Aurelius. For in a fragment preserved in the Chronicon Paschale
he declares that if the Quartodecimanians (so called from holding like the Jews
that the fourteenth of Nisan was the day for celebrating the paschal sacrifice)
appeal justly to Matthew in support of the view that Jesus partook of the last supper
with his disciples at the precise time of celebrating the paschal offering, there
must be an antagonism among the writers of the several Gospels. Now as in this
contest Matthew, Mark, and Luke 50must be ranged on the one side, and John on the other,
the words of Apollinaris indicate that all the Gospels were conceded in his day
to have equal value. To this may be added that in one passage still extant in the
same Chronicon there is undeniable reference to John's allusion (xix. 34) to the
piercing of Jesus' side.

According to Eusebius, the choice of Dionysius as Bishop
of Corinth occurred in the year 170. The same historian has preserved for us (Euseb.
iv. 23) some fragments of letters and other documents from the pen of Dionysius.
To one church he sent in the epistolary form expositions of Scripture; and to the
Romans he wrote, after animadverting severely upon the efforts to discredit the
genuineness of his own letters, that it was not at all strange that men sought to
discredit the Gospels, since these too were documents whose value was so great that
their authenticity should be indisputable. The expression, Holy Scriptures, might
not necessarily refer to the New Testament; but the word which Dionysius employs—writings respecting 51the Lord,—the same term which Clemens of Alexandria
uses (Strom. vii. 1)—has the same signification with the expression New Testament,
and relates evidently to the books which were then accepted as constituting the
New Testament canon.

The Apology written by Athenagoras of Athens, in the year 177,
contains several quotations from Matthew and Luke; it displays also unmistakable
marks of being influenced by John's Gospel; as, for example, in the passages which
speak of the Logos as the Word of God, and which allude to the Son of God who is
in the Father as the Father is in the Son. It contains the very expression found
in the first chapter of John, third verse, "All things were made by him," and in
the seventeenth chapter, twenty-first verse, "as thou, Father, art in me and I
in thee."

I have taken these witnesses to the credibility of our Gospels
from the
epoch prior to Irenæus and Tertullian, and just at the threshold of the Irenæan
period, the second and third decade after the middle of the second century. 52There are, however, left to us other witnesses
much earlier, and, like those just quoted, men who speak to us right from the very
bosom of the church.3333Hegesippus
wrote a history of the church, coming down to Eleutheros, bishop of Rome, who is
generally thought to have been in office from 177 to 193. Eusebius has made extensive
use of this work (iv. 8 and 22) in preparing his own history, and gives its author
great credit for the reliability of all his statements, and for his doctrinal soundness
(iv. 21). In addition to the fragments which Eusebius has preserved, we possess
another statement respecting Hegesippus, taken by Photius from Stephanus Gobarus,
a monophysite living at the close of the sixth century, and incorporated in his
Bibliotheca, No. 232, Bekker's edition, p. 288. In the fragments of Stephanus Gobarus,
we read, in connection with the quotation, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him," that Hegesippus declared that this was a vain and meaningless saying,
and that all such passages are in contradiction to the sacred scripture and to the
words of the Lord, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see, and the
ears that hear the things that ye hear." From this passage in Stephanus Gobarus
it is not clear against whom or against what false doctrine Hegesippus's animadversion
was directed. It is most probable that he aimed chiefly at a docetic error respecting
the per son of Christ. As Paul quoted the words cited above, from 1 Cor. ii. 9,
either from Isaiah lxiv. 3 and 4, or, as Origen supposed, from an apocryphal book
known by the name of Elias, it became the belief of certain theologians that Hegesippus
intended to reject the Epistles of Paul, and to condemn the validity of
his doctrine. Nor did they hesitate to go further, and grant that, admitting that
the passage in Corinthians was a free quotation from Isaiah, they should have to
reject that as well. They even went so far as to bring Eusebius under suspicion,
and to hint that he had willfully perverted ecclesiastical history.

Between the apostolic epoch and that which followed there
intervene the so-called apostolic Fathers; for as direct disciples of the apostles
they must be reckoned as in immediate connection with the apostolic age. If in the
little which these men have left us we do not find anything which can be construed
as definite testimony as to the authenticity of the Gospels, still we are not to
conclude from their silence that the Gospels were not in existence before their
time. But should there be in their writings a constant use of the Old Testament,
and not the slightest use of the New, in spite of the fact that the latter lay so
much nearer to hand,3434The apocalyptic, ethical work, known as the "Shepherd," had quotations neither
from the Old nor from the New Testament; there is no lack of references in it, however.
the probability must be accepted as great that at that time
the Gospels were not accepted as of equal weight with the Old Testament.

And this
appears to have been the case with the epistle of the Roman Clement, written in
the second or third decade before the close of 53the first century, and about a decade after
the destruction of Jerusalem. At that time no canon of the Gospels was in existence.
It is indeed unquestionable that in his epistle, rich in quotations from the Old
Testament, Clement refers here and there to passages3535See, for example, chap. 35: "While we put away from us all injustice
and wickedness, avarice, contention, cunning and deceit, slander and calumny, blasphemy,
pride and self-seeking, ambition and vanity: for they who do such things are displeasing
to God, and not alone they who do them, but they that have pleasure in them who
do them." Comp. Rom. i. 29, et seq. in the Pauline Epistles,
which have indeed chronologically priority over the Gospels, though not in any other
sense.3636In chap. 46: "Woe to that man:
it were better for him if he had not been born, than that he should offend one of
my chosen ones: it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he
were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of my little ones." These words are cited expressly on the "saying
of our
Lord;" they disclose, however, much more clearly the very phrase taken from his
lips and repeated in the apostle's tradition, than the use of the similar passages
in Matt. xxvi. 24; xviii. 6;
and Luke xvii. 2.

It is otherwise with those other constituents of this literature to whose
discussion we now come,—the epistles of Ignatius and that of Polycarp. The first
of these have reached us various in extent and variously edited. Three extant only
in Latin are manifestly later additions to the older literature; and so too are
five others, written in Greek, Latin, and Armenian, their authenticity being disowned
by the fact that Eusebius makes no allusion to them. There are besides seven epistles,
which are extant in a longer and a shorter form: of the longer one, there is also
an ancient Latin version; of the shorter, a Latin version and Syriac, and Armenian
ones as well. With this is to 54be joined the fact that twenty years ago a Syriac
version of three of these seven epistles was discovered, more brief than the short
Greek text. After the debate respecting the longer and the shorter epistles had
been decisively settled in favor of the shorter, the question arose whether the
three extant in the Syriac translation are not to be preferred to these seven shorter
ones. When several scholars declared themselves in favor of this, others defended
the earlier origin of the seven Greek epistles, insisting that the three in Syriac
were a mere extract, intended for devotional uses. We hold this to be the more correct
view. Similar occurrences are not unknown in the apocryphal writings of the New
Testament. An extraordinary proof in this case is afforded by the circumstance that
these seven epistles are not only recognized by Eusebius (iii. 36), but are alluded
to in the letter of Polycarp. In order to escape the force of this testimony, the
most decisive passage in the latter epistle, defended as it is by Eusebius himself,
must be set aside as unauthentic. Besides this, the assigning of 55superior value to the three Syriac letters
is invalidated by the fragmentary character of many passages; one is so manifestly
an excerpt from the Greek text that it must be admitted that one section has been
lost through the carelessness of the copyist. We claim the right, therefore, of
holding to the authenticity of the seven epistles ascribed by Eusebius and Polycarp
to Ignatius, and written while he was on the way from Antioch, through Smyrna and
Troas, to his martyrdom at Rome. Examining them with reference to our present theme,
we find several allusions to Matthew and John. Take this passage (letter to the
Romans, chap. 6): "For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?" taken literally from Matt. xvi. In like manner, the passage
in his epistle to the people of Smyrna, in which he asserts of Jesus that he was
baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him," reminds
one of Matt. iii. 15: "for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." In
the letter to the Romans (chap. 7), he writes, "I want the bread of God, the bread
56of heaven, the bread of life, which is the body of
Jesus Christ the Son of God; . . . and I want the draught of God, the blood of Jesus,
which is imperishable love and eternal life." Compare this with the sixth chapter
of John, verse 41: "I am the bread which came down from heaven;" verse 48: "I am
that bread of life;" verse 51: "And the bread that I will give is my flesh;" verse
54: "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life." To the Philadelphians
he writes (chap. 7), "What if some wished to lead me astray after the flesh? but
the Spirit is not enticed; he is from God; he knows wherever he cometh and whither
he goeth, and he brings to punishment that which is hidden." These verses have as
their basis John iii. 6 to 8,3737"That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. . . . The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit."
while the last clause grows out of the
twentieth3838"For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." verse. Were these allusions of Ignatius to Matthew and John a mere isolated
phenomenon, and one which would be adverse to other points in this discussion on
which no doubts rest, they would not have decisive weight. But so far from militating
against other points of evidence, they 57are in full agreement with them, particularly
in view of the fact that at the time when the letters were written, between 107,
the date generally assigned, and 115, they contain references to two of the most
important of the four Gospels.

The letter of Polycarp to the Philippians connects
itself most closely with those of Ignatius. According to his own testimony, it was
written very soon after the martyrdom of Ignatius; that is, between 107 and 115.
It contains very brief quotations from Matthew, as, for example, in chap. 2: "Think
on the Lord how he said, Judge not, that ye be not judged [Matt. vii. 1]. Forgive,
and it shall be forgiven you [similar to Matt. vi. 14]. Be merciful, that you may
obtain mercy [compare with Matt. v. 7]. And with what measure ye mete it shall be
measured to you again [a literal quotation from Matt. vii. 2]. And blessed are the
poor, and they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven" [taken almost verbatim from Matt. v. 3 and 10]. Further, chap. 7: "We
will implore 58the Omniscient God not to lead us into temptation,
remembering the words of the Lord, The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"
[compare Matt. vi. 13 and xxvi. 41]. Special weight must be ascribed to that passage
in Polycarp's letter which clearly manifests the use of the First Epistle of John.
Polycarp writes, chap. 7: "For every one who does not confess that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is antichrist:" in John (iv. 3) the passage runs, "Every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this
is that spirit of antichrist." The importance of this use by Polycarp of the Epistle
of John is based upon this, that—although the heroes of doubt bring into suspicion
even that which is really indisputable—the Epistle and the Gospel of John are
shown, by their essential unity of incident and language, to have necessarily had
the same author; and thus the use of the Epistle argues the use of the Gospel as
well. I have shown above, from Polycarp's intimate relation to John, how valuable
is his testimony: it has such great weight as scarcely to allow a 59word to be uttered in disavowal of the
writings which he confirms. The unworthy skill of modern scholars has not shrunk,
however, from setting aside the fact of Polycarp's testimony and unnerving its strength.
A writer of much acuteness says, "We are not compelled to regard the words of Polycarp
as an actual quotation from John, for that may have been a sentence which had come
into circulation in the church, and may have been committed to paper by John just
as well as by Polycarp, without compelling the latter to learn it from the former."
Before this conjecture had been bruited, a fellow-believer had fallen upon another
way out of the difficulty: "Can the thing not be reversed? May not the author
of the Johannean Gospel, which is as little genuine as so much else that has for
two thousand years received the reverent homage of Christendom,—may not this
false John have cited as well from Polycarp?" It requires a great deal of courage to give
utterance to such an idle fancy; yet there are men of learning who are not lacking
in this courage. But the universal and radical 60medicament which must be relied on at the last admits
in this iIstanc3 of a double application. If the Gospel of John can be thrown overboard
so easily, the Epistle of Polycarp can not so readily be disposed of. Polycarp,
then, did not write the epistle. Yet the disciple of Polycarp, Irenæus, believed
and gave his witness to just the contrary. But there are never lacking specious
grounds for a false position; and the professors of the nineteenth century have
the art of putting out of sight even an Irenæus and his fellows.

The attack on
the authenticity of Polycarp's epistle is all the more worth refuting, because,
if successful, it does away no less with the genuineness of Ignatius's epistles,
all the more troublesome if they are to be accepted in the limits which Polycarp
and Eusebius assigned to them. On this account the latest outbreaks of critical
presumption and audacity have been directed against the whole Polycarp-Ignatius
literature. What one of these critical heroes does not venture, another does. One
goes to work more in '^root and branch" fashion, another 61more artistically.
The one contents himself with
rejecting
on his own authority all those passages ill Polycarp's letter which allude to
the person and epistles of Ignatius, imputing them to a forger known to have lived
long before Eusebius's time; the other, on the contrary, casts away the whole
letter. In like manner, the one satisfies himself with regarding the three shortest
Syrian epistles of Ignatius as genuine; the other holds it more advisable to assert
that not a single one of the collective letters of Ignatius is genuine. Such dealings
as this would soon convert the temple of God into a common ruin.

For my own part,
I do not hesitate to advance further in the period of Polycarp. Justin the Martyr,
even before his violent death in Rome in 166 made his memory dear to the church,
had attained to great celebrity through his writings. Three of his works are still
extant in the complete form, and their authenticity is undisputed,—the two apologies
and the dialogue with the Jew Tryphon. Eusebius displays perfect familiarity with
the two which 62were written to defend Christianity against
the
attacks of high pagan authorities, and speaks of them as two separate works, one
of which was dedicated to the Emperor Antoninus, the other to Marcus Aurelius. Jerome
repeats the statement of Eusebius, and most scholars3939So, for example, Niedner's History of the Christian Church, p. 206: "The first, the greater, at the
time of Antoninus Pius, in 138 or 139; the second, the smaller, under Marcus Aurelius,
soon after 161." The same statement is made by Neander (Gen. Hist. of the Christ.
Rel. and Chur., 3d ed. i. 1, p. 364, et sq.): "Since in the superscription he does
not speak of M. Aurelius as Cæsar, it is probable that it was written before his
promotion to the imperial dignity, which took place in 139." Thereupon he alludes
to the "greater difficulty" which the determination of the time when the shorter Apology was written cost him, and states
that he could
come to no decision respecting it. down to the present day
have coincided with him. The first work must be assigned to the year 138 or 139,
the other to the year 161, the first year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Respecting
the first, however, it should be said that it was in 139 that Marcus Aurelius (Berissimus)
was named as Cæsar, yet the inscription does not address him with the imperial
title. Very recently there have been new views taken respecting this matter, and
there has been unjustified evidence4040The passage (i. 46) runs, "In
order that it may not be said in senseless perversion of what I have stated respecting
Christ's being born under Quirinus 150 years ago, his teaching what may be called
his system under Pontius Pilate, and the inference which might be drawn that all
men born before his time were free from guilt, I will meet this matter at the very
outset." Every one can see in these round numbers, and in this mode of expression,
how little the writer meant to assign a definite date to the composition of the
Apology. Still, the year 147 is the one which, according to our ordinary computation,
is assigned as the date when it was written. That in the Apology of Marcion the
subject is alluded to as one occupying the public mind, has no vital relation to
the time which we have specified, although to the statement of Irenæus that Marcion
was in Rome with Cerdo at the time of Hyginus (generally set between 137 and 141),
must be added that of the Arabic biographers of Mani, according to which Marcion
came into notice in the first year of Antoninus Pius, 138: for the year 139 can
not be coupled with this event. That Justin cites in the Apology his work against
Marcion ("and the Marcionites" does not appear in in the
title), is said without truth. For in i. 26 he alludes to his work "Against all
Heresies," not to that "Against Marcion;" the latter is cited by Irenæus, iv. 6: 2, after a citation of the first-named
work of Jerome in the catalogue. One circumstance opposed to this is not to be overlooked.
If, with the pushing back of the first Apology to the year 147, the connection of
the second and the first be insisted on, and the latter is regarded as a mere appendix
to the former, the assigning of so early a date to the former becomes the more improbable
from the fact that Justin alludes in the same to the persecutions of Crescens following
him even to his death. This seems to me to give more decisive evidence against the
connection of the two, than the existing reference in the second to what is said
in the first does for that connection. brought forward to support the assigning
of the year 1474141If the freedom be taken to
come from this date down to 150, there is an equal right to go back several years
before 147. to the production of the first of the two works in question:
some, moreover, have felt themselves justified in taking a position not warranted
by Eusebius and Jerome, and in regarding the second apology as no independent production,
but a mere appendix to the first. Neither the 63one view nor the other appears to me to be thoroughly
grounded. Still, the value of Justin's testimony is very little affected by the
question whether he wrote a few years prior or subsequently to the year 140. Yet
the fact that these two works of Justin's were written prior to the middle of
the
second century makes the question one of great interest whether he discussed our
Gospels in them. It is a topic which has been treated in our time by many persons,
and with great variance of opinion. What is the essential result gained from these
investigations? That Justin often quotes from our own Matthew, is indisputable.4242By way of illustration, we may cite the passage which
is given three times in the Dialogue (chaps. 76, 120 and 140), "They shall come
from the east and from the west, and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into
outer darkness." This coincides literally with Matt. viii. 11
and 12, excepting that in the latter we have the reading "many shall
come." In like manner in the Dialogue (chap. 107) we have, "It is written in the
Memorabilia, that your country folk asked him and said, 'Show us a sign.' And he
answered them, 'An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there
shall no sign be given them but the sign of the prophet Jonas."' This reply of the
Lord coincides literally with Matt. xii. 40, with the mere use of "them" for "it."
That in various passages he follows Mark and Luke, is extremely probable.4343Respecting Luke xxii. 44, it runs, for instance, that Justin alludes
in the Dialogue (chap. 103) to the sweat which ran down in great drops while Jesus
was on the mount of Olives, and, indeed, it is stated with express reference to
the "Memorabilia composed by his apostles and their companions." Twice (chaps. 76
and 100) he cites as a saying of the Lord: "The Son of man must suffer many things,
and be rejected by the scribes and Pharisees (chap. 100, 'by the Pharisees and scribes'),
and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." This agrees more closely with
Mark viii. 31 and Luke ix. 21, than with
Matthew xvi. 21; only in Justin the reading
is the "Pharisees" instead of the "elders and high priest" (as in Matt., Mark, and
Luke), and in like manner "be crucified" instead of "be slain." Yet
this fact has been invalidated by the efforts of some to show that Justin did not
use our Gospels as his basis, but writings very like them in character, perhaps
the Gospel of the Hebrews, or, according to some, the Gospel of Peter, which was
derived from the latter, but which, with the exception of a few passages,4444Among these is Theodoret's
Hæret. Fab. ii. 2, according to which that which
is said everywhere else respecting the Gospel of the Hebrews is asserted to have
been in use among the Nazaræans. Eusebius reports (Hist. Eccl. vi. 12) the judgment
of Serapion, bishop of Antioch, regarding this matter. The latter found the most
of it conformable to the true faith, but detected here and there something superadded
even in the sense of the Docetes, which he ascribed to the influence of that community
in Rhossus in Cilicia, where he found the book in use. Origen, in his comment on
Matt. xiii. 54, et sq., states that, like the work of James, this reports the "brethren of Jesus" to be children of Joseph by a former marriage. has
remained entirely unknown to us to the present time. One support for this 64view is found in the fact that some quotations of
Justin are also found in the pseudo-Clementine homilies, having there the same or
similar differences from the readings in the canonical text.4545A few examples may illustrate the character of the argument between Justin and the
Clementine Homilies. Both Justin and the psuedo-Clement concur in this: "Let your
yea be yea and your nay nay; whatever is more than this cometh of evil." In Matthew,
however, it stands thus: "But let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay;
for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil." The first of these forms coincides,
however, almost literally with that which is found in James v. 12, "But let [ἤτω,
Justin and the pseudo-Clement ἔστω] your yea be yea, and your nay, nay." Further,
we have in Justin, i. Apol. chap. 16, "Not all who say unto me, Lord, Lord, shall come into the kingdom of heaven, but they
that do the will of my
Father who is in heaven. For he who heareth me and doeth what I say, he heareth
him that sent me." In the Homilies (8: 7) it runs, "Jesus said to one who often
called him Lord but did none of his commandments, 'Why callest thou me Lord, Lord,
and doest not what I say?"' Herewith compare Matt. vii. 21, " Not every one that
saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth
the will of my Father which is in heaven." In like manner, Luke x. 16, "He that
heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth
me despiseth him that sent me." For the last clause the Cambridge Codex, with three
old Latin manuscripts, offers the reading, "But he who heareth me, heareth him who
sent me." Another well accredited reading of the greatest antiquity adds to the
standard version the words, "And he that heareth me, heareth him that sent me."
They take out, however, from Justin (and the Homilies) the phrase, "and doeth what
I say," in order to show a reference to some other source. Two other examples which
illustrate this matter will be found in the following note. The supposition is,
perhaps, an admissible one, that Justin, at the very earliest times, drew that Gospel
of the Hebrews, which contained such repeated references to Matthew, into the circle
of his evangelical quotations in one of his first works; for we have Eusebius's
authority, in the first half of the fourth century, for the fact that at his time
this Gospel was reckoned by several authorities as belonging to the canon. On the
other hand, it is a manifest and groundless exercise of arbitrary authority to hold
that such of his quotations as harmonize more or less closely with our received
text are taken from a source respecting which we are left to conjecture alone. Such
a view is all the more inadmissible from the fact that free extracts from our Gospels
are fully in accordance with the character of the times in which they fall; and
this is the same epoch, the first half of the second century, to which 65we trace the main origin of the diverse materials
which enter into the canon, and more especially the Gospels. With equal freedom
Justin makes his quotations from the Old Testament, even if he may not be proved
to take his text exclusively from the standard Septuagint. And the fact is not to
be overlooked, that the passages quoted by Justin from the Gospels can not be judged
by the documents comprising the New Testament text which has come down to us, and
which forms the substance of our usual editions; it is clear that many of our most
widely diffused readings have proceeded from earlier or more recent corruptions
in the primitive text; the Gospels especially were subject to arbitrary changes
within the very first ten years after they had been committed to writing.4646 It
is very doubtful whether from the way in which Justin cites Matt. xi. 27, and especially
in view of the transposition, we are right in forming conclusions as to a source
different from the Gospel of the church, in spite of the
close resemblance between the Homilies and Justin's citation. The passage runs in
Matthew, "No one knoweth (ἐπιγινώσκει, several very
ancient authorities γινώσκει,
but Clemens of Alexandria often, Origen often, Irenæus often, and Didymus, ἔγνω,
'knew') the Son but the Father; neither knoweth (as before) any man the Father save
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" (but Clemens of Alex. often,
Origen often, Irenæus twice, and Tertullian, "and to whom"—Irenæus "and to them
to whom " the Son may reveal him). In Justin (Dial. 100, 1st Apol. 63) we have "No one knoweth (twice 'knew') the Father save
the Son, nor the Son save the Father,
and those to whom the Son shall reveal him." In the Homilies xvii. 4, xviii. 4 and
13, "No one knows the Father save the Son, as also no one knoweth the Son (οἶδεν,
xviii. 3, 'nor knoweth any one the Son) save the Father and they to whom the Son
will reveal him.' Epiphanius has this transposition (in the fourth century) seven
times in eleven citations, and twice does it occur even in Irenæus, who in a third
place still has a reading which is peculiar to the Gnostics. We may notice the other
details of this verse, in which very early changes of the text are unmistakable,
without having to say, This is the canonical, this the heretical text. Compare in
this passage my Greek Testament, eighth edition, first part. So in Matt. xxv. 41: "Depart (πορεύεσθε) from me, ye accursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Justin (Dial. 76) and the pseudo-Clemens
have, "Depart (ὑπάγετε) into outer darkness which the Father has prepared for the
devil (pseudo-Clemens 'Satan') and his angels." Here not only has the Sinaitic
Codex the same expression ὑπάγετε, but the Cambridge, which is allied to it, together
with the oldest Latin witnesses, and Irenæus and Tertullian as well, have also,
"which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels." So, too, from the
passage in the Homilies xviii. 17, "Enter through the strait and narrow way, through
which you will pass into life," there has been an attempt to draw an inference in
favor of an extra-canonical source; but several of the oldest witnesses to the text,
among them the Sinaitic Codex, lead to the supposition that Matt. vii. 13 and 14
was read at the most remote period as follows: "for broad and wide is the way,"
"for strait and narrow is the way," instead of "for wide is the gate and broad
is the way," "for strait is the gate and narrow is the way."

My discussion
thus far of the extracts which Justin makes from the Gospels relates solely to those
which he draws from the synoptic ones, the first three. Despite the prevailing skepticism
in this matter, it is as good as certain that Justin made use of those three Gospels:
but 66all the more obstinate is the assertion that he had
no acquaintance with John's Gospel. But what in fact is his relation to John? In.
my opinion there are most cogent reasons for believing that John was read and used
by Justin. The delineation of the person of Christ, characteristic of John, as,
for example, in the opening of the Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God," and in verse fourteen, "And the Word became
flesh," as well as the general designation of Jesus as the Logos or Word of God,4747Throughout
the whole Gospel of John this exclusively Johannean designation does not appear
again; it is found only in the Apocalypse xix. 13,
and as the "Word of life" at the beginning of the Epistle of John. Is it to be expected that Justin, if he did indeed draw
from
John, would use this term exclusively or with marked signs of preference?
appears unmistakably in not a few passages in Justin, such, for instance, as "And
Jesus Christ was begotten in a manner wholly peculiar to himself as the Son of God,
while he is also the Word (Logos) of the same." "The primeval force (δύναμις) after
the Father of All and God the Lord, is the Son, the Word (Logos); and I shall show
how he through the incarnation (σαρκοποιηθεὶς) became man." "The Word (Logos) of
God is the Son of the same." "As they have not confessed all that belongs to the
Logos, which is Christ, they have 67often uttered what is at variance with itself." "Through
the Word (Logos) of God, Jesus Christ our Saviour became flesh (σαρκοποιηθεὶς)."
To these passages, taken from the brief second Apology, I add the following, taken
from the first (chap. 33): "By the expressions the Holy Ghost and the Power of God
in Luke i. 35 [the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee], we are to understand the Logos, which is the' first begotten
of God." In the "Dialogue," chap. 105, we find that "the same was begotten by the
Father of All after a peculiar manner as the Word (Logos) and Power (δύναμις), becoming
flesh through the instrumentality of the Virgin Mary, as we learn from the memorials
which I have already displayed." In order to invalidate the proof found here that
Justin wrote not independently of John, critics have made an effort to point out
the differences between the conceptions of Logos which they both maintained, and
to show that Justin had a superficial and merely external view of it. But is it
to be supposed that those who first accepted 68the doctrines of John were able to fathom and exhaust
them all? On the contrary, does not the fact that Justin was not able to penetrate
to the depths of John's theology show that in his very allusions to it, without
fully comprehending it, he was not independent of it? It seems to me that the internal
connection between both meets the opponents of the authenticity of John's Gospel
in no more convincing manner than in showing how the doctrines of John may be culled
from the words of Justin.4848Comp. Volkmar, Ursprung unserer Evangelien, p. 95: "Justin contains the
root of that which is. cited in the Gospel of John, the beholder of the Lamb (Rev.
v. 12; i. 5), or rather, Justin himself appears as one of the sources in favor of
the later transformations of this latest Gospel." "Much more clearly does the most
exact trial reveal this: that the one who tells of the Logos follows him who teaches
regarding the Logos, the post-John follows the martyr substantially in all things;
and it is beyond all doubt that Justin at least never saw this new Gospel. So far
as the formula is concerned, it is not only wholly possible, but even probable,
yes, the one thing probable, that the one who tells of the Logos was not only really
but was also recorded to have been in the school of Justin, the teacher of the Logos."

There are not wanting passages in John's Gospel, moreover,
which may be found specifically reproduced in Justin. In the "Dialogue," chap.
88, he writes of John the Baptist, "The people believed that he was the Christ;
but he said to them, I am not Christ, but the voice of a preacher." This is in direct
connection with the words of John i. 20 and 23; for the first words in the reply
of the Baptist have been reported by no other evangelist than John.

Twice can Justin's
expressions only be explained by supposing him to have been familiar 69with the account in John ix. of the man who had been born
blind. He speaks expressly of the miraculous healings effected by Jesus, and says
in the first Apology (chap. 22) that the Saviour restored to health one who was
born lame, palsied, and blind.4949The word πηρὸς has definitively and preferably the signification
"blind," as the explanations in Hesychius and Suidas show; so too the whole passage,
belonging here, Constitut. v. 7: 17, where the blind man of John's Gospel as well
as of Justin is called ὁ ἐκ γενετῆς πηπὸς. In like manner in the "Dialogue" (chap. 69) he
declares that Jesus healed those who were blind, deaf, and lame from their birth,5050In both passages Justin
has the literal expression of John ix. 1,
ἐκ γενετῆς, which is almost never
elsewhere used in reference to miraculous accounts of the Gospels. Justin, too,
in his Apology, puts it in immediate connection with the blind, after naming the
lame and the palsied. The same seems to be true, too, of the passage in the Dialogue,
although the expression is capable of being connected with the deaf and the lame.
giving to one sound limbs, to another hearing, to a third restored sight. What a
trick of art is it to take the words "I was born blind,"5151The emphatic expression of John and Justin,
ἐκ γενετῆς, does not
appear here, but ἐγεννήθην. spoken by the man who
was a defender of Christ, and who corresponds to the blind man of Jericho, and to
make them refer to an unknown source used by Justin, an ostensibly lost authority
of the. narrative which he gives elsewhere! To what end is this? To no other than
to discredit the Gospel of John, and to deny that it was before Justin when he wrote.

The words of Zechariah xii. 10 Justin quotes (first Apology, 52; also "Dialogue,"
14 and 33) precisely in the language of John xix. 37, " they shall look on him
whom they pierced." 70The text of the Seventy, which Jerome expressly
confirms, has an entirely different translation5252That the translation of John found
a place in some of our manuscripts of the Septuagint, is no less than an evidence
in favor of a primitive translation followed by Justin and John, and at variance
with the text of the Seventy. Naturally Tertullian (de resurr. carn. 26) as well
as Theodotus (excerpt. 62) follow John's Gospel; whereas another passage of Tertullian
(de carn. Christ. 24, also adv. Marc. 3, 7, and adv. Iud. 14, both as far as "tribus
ad tribum") attaches itself rather to the Apocalypse i. 7. The seventh chapter of
the Epistle of Barnabas must also be brought into connection with the same passages
of John. of this passage; yet there is
one of the older versions given us by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, which coincides
with the language of John and Justin. There is nothing more improbable than that
John and Justin were here independent of each other, and followed a translation
of the Hebrew text which is unknown to us. Is the acceptance of this theory, one
of the most untenable of positions, taken to avoid the manifest connection between
the words of Justin and those of John?

To close this part of our discussion, we
find in Justin's first Apology, chap. 61, Christ has said, "Unless ye are born
again, ye can not enter the kingdom of heaven. It is manifest to every one that
those who have been born once can not enter again into their mother's womb." This
passage has been the theme of much controversy; but I am fully of the opinion that
Justin had in view the passage in John iii. 3 to 5, "Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be born again,5353The form retained in our translation, "be born again,"
which is in accordance with the Vulgate, is literally justified by, and is significantly recommended in the answer of Nicodemus. So, too, the explanation of the new birth made by Jesus, in the fifth
verse,
to Nicodemus, is much more closely allied with being "born again" than with being
born "from above." Many commentators, however, ancient as well as modern, prefer
the expression "from above." If, however, this reading is to be taken in the sense
as if the expression of Justin did not conform to that of John, and therefore discloses
another origin than John's Gospel, it is singularly thought possible to decide how
Justin was obliged to understand John's expression. But see the next note. he can not see the kingdom 71of God.5454In order to deny the connection of the Justinian quotation with the passage
from John, it has been asserted that the expression used in the first, the "kingdom
of heaven" (βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν), is not Johannean. But the same expression is
so strongly authenticated in the following fifth verse, by the Sinaitic Codex, by
the Docetes in Hippolytus, by a newly discovered fragment of Irenæus (in Harvey,
p. 498), by the apostolical constitutions, and by Origen (in the Interpres), that
it must be regarded as in the original. (Accepted in 1864 in my synopsis.) I must
remark in addition, that the fragment of Irenæus has ἀναγεννηθῇ (born again) instead
of John's γεννηθῇ: it shows how much it lay at heart with Justin and others
to give the idea of John's γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν
(born anew) by ἀναγεννηθῆτε
(born again). Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be
born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be
born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit he can not enter into the kingdom of God" [kingdom of heaven
according to the Sinaitic Codex and other ancient authorities.] Now what means is
there of escaping the inference which the parallelism in these two passages gives
rise to? Those who have attempted to do this have quoted Matt. xviii. 3, " Verily
I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven," and have given utterance to the suspicion
that in some lost Gospel, perhaps that of the Hebrews, to which reference has already
been made, this passage was recorded just as Justin has given it, his authority therefor being not John, but some previous
writer.5555For this view is claimed the similarity, also, which
the quotation in the pseudo-Clementines, xi. 26, has with that of Justin: "for thus
says the prophet, 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be born again with living water
in the name of the Father, ye can not come into the kingdom of heaven."' The significance
of this similarity is to be inferred from what has been expressed in the previous
notes. That the earlier expressly denied dependence on John's Gospel is to be discerned
in the newly discovered close of his Homilies, may be seen further on. Compare what
is said under the head "Naasenians." In order therefore to avoid
what lies directly in our path, we are compelled to have recourse to, some unknown
higher authority. The second 72part of Justin's expression gives all the less reason
for appealing from John to Matthew, that the fifth verse in the passage in John
(standing in direct connection with the third), "he can not enter into the kingdom
of heaven" [Himmelreich], is the apparent basis of Justin's expression, "ye can
not enter into the kingdom of heaven." The phrase "kingdom of God" was completely
overshadowed by the more usual one, kingdom of heaven.5656John uses the expression "kingdom
of God" only in iii. 3; it is often met, on the contrary, in Luke, both in the Gospel
and the Acts; often, too, in Mark, and several times in Matthew. Decisive too of the personal
use of John by Justin is that expression of the latter relative to the entering
again into the mother's womb and being born, derived from John iii. 4. To suppose
such a coincidence of thought and language to have been accidental, is a feat of
trickery which can deceive no one capable of forming an independent judgment.

To
this result, which confirms the authenticity of the first three Gospels as much
as it does the fourth, I must add two points more, which still strengthen my conclusions.
One of these is, that Justin is in the habit of alluding to the "Memorabilia of
the Apostles, known as 73Gospels," without specifically mentioning the names of the
authors. Yet while doing this he makes particular mention of the fact that the writers
were apostles5757See
Dialogue, chap. 103. In the Latin version the passage runs, "in commentariis quos
ab eius apostolis et eorum sectatoribus scriptos dico." and companions of Jesus, and by speaking of their combined writings
as the "Gospel" he leads us to the undoubting conviction that it was invested with
full canonical authority: and such an investiture naturally allows the names of
the writers to fall into the background and to be unnoticed, while their writings
might have general acceptance. In the second place, we have to' notice that Justin,
even in his first Apology (chap. 67), asserts that in the Christian congregations
the "Memorabilia of the Apostles or the writings of the Prophets" were read every
Sunday. Here then is an instance of the Gospels and the prophetical books being
placed on the same plane, the first being exalted to the same canonicity which the
latter had enjoyed from the first. It is an error or a self-deception to deny that
Justin's words do not warrant the acceptance of those books as canonical, on the
ground that there were writings 74read in the church which were not accepted as
a part of the canon. There were such books indeed, but they formed a class subordinate
to the canon, and pre-supposing the formation of it. Of course there was not at
the outset an immediate recognition of the equality of the Christian records with
the hallowed books of the Old Testament; but after the church had enlarged the canon
by admitting those sacred writings which had sprung from a common source, and had
given them equal honor with those previously accepted, there came into view certain
books which had more or less claim to recognition as canonical: and thus it came
about that some were admitted to the prerogative of being read in the churches,
without sharing the same honor which was given to those accepted as fully canonical.
At a later period the church found it to be for its interest to assign to these
books, to which usage gave a kind of half-canonical character, a rank equal to the
highest. That this does not apply in the least to the earliest formation of the
Christian canon is shown by the 75Muratori Fragment which speaks of the Apocalypse of John
and of Peter. We accept these, but the last named is not admitted by some of our
scholars to the honor of being publicly read in church. This doubt expresses distinctly
the want of full canonical authority which led to the rejection of the writing in
question. Later usage can not do away with this; and just as little can the fact
that in some instances the direct relation of a paper to a single congregation became
a source of advantage to the common church, as is testified by Dionysius of Corinth
(Euseb., Hist. Eccl. iv. 23) in the case of the letters of Clemens and Soter to
the Corinthians. In the Muratori Fragment already referred to, it is stated, toward
the end of the Shepherd of Hermas, that he was to be recommended for private use,
but not for public worship, and that he was to be included neither in the number
of prophets nor apostles.

The manner in which Justin expresses himself in the passage
quoted above (first Apology, chap. 67) makes it impossible, in my opinion, to doubt
that in his time the Gospels were accepted 76as of canonical authority. We possess in fact
a much earlier testimony of this equality in one of the generally accepted seven
short letters, in that to Smyrna, the seventh chapter, where are the words, "It
behooves us to give heed to the prophets, and especially to the Gospel, in which
the passion and the resurrection are fully portrayed." Here too, as the reader observes,
there is a manifest coupling of the prophets and the authors of the Gospels, i.
e. the books which in their full extent and defined limits form the Gospel, and
a proof that both were in common use in the church.5858In the same
sense the passage in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Philadelphians appears to have authoritative weight: "while
I curse myself before the Gospel, as the body of Jesus, and before the apostles
as the elders of the church. But the prophets we will love because they have prophesied
of the Gospel and have hoped and waited for the Lord." By the expression the "Gospel
as the body of Jesus," in its connection with the apostles and prophets, is probably
to be meant the written Gospel in the hands of the church.

These are proofs from the
first quarter (whether the year be taken as 107 or 115) and from the second quarter
(139, or, as some suppose, ten years earlier) of the second century, that at that
time the Gospels were held as of equal validity with the prophets, and were admitted
to canonical authority, a place being assigned them directly after the prophetical
books. What is not told us in detail respecting the various Gospels may be inferred
from many other testimonies. I have already shown, from 77various passages of Justin Martyr's undisputed writings,
that our Gospels, without the exception of the fourth, that of John, were admitted
to form one Gospel, and to be invested with canonical authority. Is it possible,
therefore, for the opinion to be justified that at Justin's time other Gospels than
ours were in use as having had a sacred origin, in spite of the fact that, decades
after Justin, these, and no others, were in repute through the whole Christian church?
Does it not contravene all that we know of the origin of the canon, that at the
outset, and even in the age of Justin, only Matthew, Mark, and Luke were regarded
as canonical, and that John was subsequently smuggled in?

According to the views
of many, Justin was the author of the Letter to Diognetus; but those who assign
to this an earlier date, and consider it the work of an older cotemporary of Justin's,
are more correct. Although this short apologetic epistle contains no definite quotation
from any one of the Gospels, it contains many allusions to evangelical passages,
and especially 78to John. The words of the sixth chapter, "Christians
live in the world, but are not of the world;" those of the tenth, "for God has loved men, for whom he created the world;
. . . . to whom he has sent his only-begotten
Son," contain almost unmistakable references to John xvii. 11, "these are in the
world;" 14, "the world hateth them, for they are not of the world; " 16, "they
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;" and to John iii. 16, "for
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son."

But before advancing
further we must come back to the Gospel of the Hebrews, whose use in connection
with our synoptic Gospels is rendered probable by the language of Justin, by the
pseudo-Clementine, and even by Tatian's Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Gospels,
and testified by Eusebius (iv. 22: 3) of Hegesippus. Does not this bring into great
uncertainty the character of the earlier Gospel canon? It certainly appears to do
so if the Gospel of the Hebrews is admitted to a place side by side with the synoptic
Gospels, and be regarded 79as an independent production. Against such a view there
are a variety of considerations to be urged. I have already mentioned that the authorship
of this Gospel was ascribed to Matthew. We shall see, further on, that at a very
early period, in its original Hebrew form, it was held to be the work of Matthew,
and that Greek editions, with many changes in the text, were in use among the judaizing
Christians. This has led to the result that the passages of the Gospel of the Hebrews
which have been transmitted to us from antiquity, and more especially those which
have recently been brought to light5959See my Notitia
editionis cod. Sin. cum catalogo codicum, etc., p. 58 et sq. The MS. of the Gospels
indicated under No. 2, in my collection of Greek MSS. dating probably from the ninth
century, contains in three passages of Matthew the parallels of the Hebrews' Gospel
(called τὸ ἰουδαϊκόν). At Matt. iv. 5, we have "to Jerusalem," not "into the holy
city." At xvi. 17 is the reading υἱὲ ἰωάντου (son of John),
not βαριωνᾶ (son of
Jona). At xviii. 22, in the Hebrews' Gospel, after the words "seventy times seven,"
the addition, "for in the prophets, too, after that they were anointed with the
Holy Ghost, was sin found" (literally the "word of sin,"
λόγος ἁμαρτίας). This
remarkable passage was given by Jerome in the Latin form. At xxvi. 74, it is asserted
that instead of the words "then he began to curse and to swear," the Hebrews' Gospel
reads, "and he denied and swore and cursed." Such a parallelizing of special passages
as we find here would be irrational, yes, impossible, had the Hebrews' Gospel not
the same character, the same tone, and in the main the same language, with that
of Matthew. And if some of the patristic quotations from it do not seem to give
special support to this view, it is not to be forgotten that these citations must
be made where there are deviations from Matthew's reading, and that they are represented
to us as such. by the writer of these pages, manifest a striking
parallelism with our Gospel of Matthew. All these circumstances lead to the conviction
that at the beginning, and probably during the first half of. the second century,
the Gospel of Matthew and that of the Hebrews were regarded not as essentially different
productions, but as different editions of the same document, and that by degrees
greater light was diffused regarding the variations in them. Thus Irenæus states
of the Ebionites, in two passages (i. 26: 802; iii. 11: 7), that they made use of the Gospel
of Matthew; while Eusebius (iii. 27), probably referring to the first of these passages,
corrects Irenæus's statement, and puts the Gospel of the Hebrews in the place of
that of Matthew. Yet it happened, near the end of the fourth century, that the most
learned theologian and most experienced critic of his age, Jerome, while in possession
of the Gospel of the Hebrews in the Syro-Chaldaic dialect of the country, and full
of the recollections of an older tradition, believed that it was the original text
of Matthew fallen into his hands. After becoming more fully acquainted with it,
and after translating it into Latin and Greek, he acknowledged that many believed
that it was the work of Matthew himself.

Thus far we have been concerned almost
exclusively with the writings of men in whom the church, from the second century,
in which they lived, onward, recognized venerated pillars of the faith. Yet at the
same epoch there was a rich literature, which, in conjunction with what was ecclesiastical,
put forth a rank growth, 81which elevated far above the simple Christian doctrine
a system of speculations evolved from the schools of heathen and Jewish philosophy:
I refer to the heretical views which became current, and which may be also known
as the doctrines of the Errorists. Even from this literature we derive convincing
proofs that by the middle, or even before the middle of the second century, our
Gospels had attained the highest degree of consideration. This is interesting not
more for the light which it throws upon the earlier history of heresy than for that
which it sheds upon the age and the origin of our Gospels. In calling upon these
errorists to give evidence respecting the Gospels, we have no less an authority
than Irenæus, that Bishop of Lyons of whom I have elsewhere spoken in detail. Irenæus
himself utters the expression, "So firmly are our Gospels grounded, that even the errorists are compelled to acknowledge their
credibility, and each one of them must
begin with them in order to lay the foundations of his own system."6060See adv. hær. iii. 11: 7. "Tanta est autem circa
evangelia hæc firmitas, ut et ipsi hæretici testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis
egrediens unusquisque eorum conetur suam confirmare doctrinam." This is
a judgment passed by the second half of the second century 82on the character of the first half. And this first
half of the second century is just the period to which the opponents of the genuineness
of our Gospels are accustomed to appeal. Now, are we to suppose that a man like
Irenæus, who lived only a few decades after the period to which I am referring,
was not better acquainted with the facts than the scholars and professors of the
nineteenth century? The more the respect due to the true progress of science in
our age, the less is owed to those scholars who employ their knowledge and acumen
for the purpose of thrusting at truth. The accuracy of what Irenæus testified to
can be substantiated even today with facts; and our tread is all the more secure
if we do not withhold our belief. What the earliest Fathers have testified respecting
the primitive errorists (and to the hints of the former we owe the larger share
of our knowledge about the latter), shows us, in the most convincing manner, how
radically separate they were from the Gospels, and from the books which were considered
holy by the church. Irenæus himself is one of the chief preservers 83of these indications; after him comes a work (discovered only twenty
years ago) of a disciple of Irenæus, Hippolytus by name, a man who lived so nearly
contemporaneously with those errorists as to warrant being received as equally good
authority as Irenæus regarding them.

One of the boldest and most gifted thinkers
among those errorists was Valentinus,6161Irenæus
iii. 4:.3 (and following him Eusebius iv. 11) makes him come to Rome at the time
of Hippolytus, between 137 and 141. who came from Egypt to Rome about the year
140, and resided there for the twenty years succeeding. He undertook the task of
writing a complete history of those "supernal transactions which took place in
the realm of the divine primeval Powers and supernatural Being before the sending
of the only-begotten of the Father," hoping to be able to determine the better from
the character of these events the nature and mission of the Son of God. In carrying
out this stupendous design, he did not overlook the bumble task of culling from
John's Gospel a great number of conceptions and expressions, such as the Only-Begotten,
the Word, Light, Life, Fullness, Truth, Grace, Saviour, Comforter, 84and of using them for his purpose.
There is
in this such an undeniable connection between the Gospel of John and the
edifice of Valentine's construction that only two explanations of it are possible.
Either Valentine made use of John or John of Valentine. The latter alternative,
according to my previously stated views of the second century, must be regarded
as pure nonsense, and closer investigation into the matter confirms this. If science,
hostile to the church, is able to reconcile itself to this fact, it passes judgment
on itself. Irenæus states explicitly that the sect of Valentine made the fullest
use of the Gospel of John;6262See adv. hær. iii. 11: 7. Hi autem qui a Valentino sunt, eo (sc. evangelio) quod est secundum Johannem plenissime
utentes ad ostensionem conjugationum suarum, ex ipso detegentur nihil recte dicentes,
quemadmodum ostendimus in primo libro. and he gives the most explicit demonstration that
the first chapter of John was drawn upon for one of the main features of the Valentinian
system, the doctrine of the first Ogdoade.6363See adv. hær. i. 8: 5. Adhuc
autem Johannem discipulum domini docent primam Ogdoadem et omnium generationem signifi casse
ipsis dictionibus, etc. The statement of Irenæus confirms
that of Hippolytus, for he cites expressions of John which Valentine had quoted.
This is the most clearly the case with John x. 8; for Hippolytus writes,
"Whereas
the prophets and the law, according to Valentine's belief, were filled with a subordinate 85and foolish Spirit, Valentine says,
'The words of the Saviour are,
"All who came before me are thieves and murderers."'"6464See Philosophum. vi. 35. Literally the
passage runs: Therefore all the prophets, and the law spoken of as Demiurgos, a
foolish god, sunk in folly and ignorance (ἐλάλησαν ἀπὸ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ
. . . μωροὶ οὐδὲν εἰδότες). On this account, according to Valentine, the Saviour says, "All
that before me," etc. And as the Johannean,
so were the other Gospels used by Valentine. According to the statement of Irenæus,
he considered (i. 7: 4) the subordinate Spirit already mentioned, which he termed Demiurgos and Taskmaster, to be represented
by the centurion of Capernaum (Matt.
viii. 9; Luke vii. 8); in the dead and resuscitated twelve-year-old daughter of
Jairus he recognized an image of his "sub-wisdom" (Achamoth), the mother of the
Taskmaster (i. 8: 2); in like manner in the history of the woman who had suffered
for twelve years from an issue of blood, and was healed by the Lord (Matt. ix.
20), he recognized the pains and restoration of his twelfth primeval
spirit (Æon)
i. 3: 3; and the expression of Jesus recorded in Matt. v. 18 he applied to the ten
æons hinted at in the numerical value of the Iota, the smallest letter.

What
do they who deny the high antiquity of John's Gospel say to this? They assert that
all that pertains to John was not brought out 86by Valentine himself, but by his disciples. In fact,
the expression is much more frequent in Irenæus "they say"—the followers of
Valentine—than "he says," meaning Valentine himself. But who is wise enough to
discriminate between what the master said and what the disciples added, without
echoing their master in the least?6565Appeal is made especially to i. 8: 1-4, and
8: 5; yet in the former of these only the three first Gospels are referred to, in
the latter only the last; moreover, they are alluded to only by Ptolemy, whose name
is given in the Latin text ("Et Ptolemæus quidem ita;" in the Greek text these
words are lacking) at the end of the account. At 8: 1-4, however, Irenæus refers
to the Valentinians, not to Valentine. Can it be said, however, that 1-4 is the
master with his pupils, and that in the fifth section only the pupil is meant? We must here touch once more upon the passage
of Irenæus (iii. 11: 7) where he expresses himself respecting the relation of the
heretics to the Gospels. After the sentence, "So securely are our Gospels founded,
that even the errorists give testimony for them, and every one of these begins at
the Gospels when he wants to try the foundations of his own system," he goes on
to say, "For the errorists make exclusive use of the Gospel of Matthew, and are
convinced from his pages alone of their error respecting the Lord. Marcion, however,
avails himself of the mutilated Gospel according to Luke, and the very part which
he retains makes his blasphemy against the only God apparent. Those who separate
Jesus from Christ, and insist that it was Christ 87alone, and not Jesus, who suffered, assign a preference to the Gospel
according to Mark. If they read it with real love of truth, they can be cured of
their error; but they who cleave to Valentine make the fullest use of John's Gospel
for the confirmation of their doctrine of Æons; and from this it can be seen that
they teach nothing correctly, as we have shown in our first book." Does this representation
of Irenæus accord with the view that the use of the Gospel according to John began
with the disciples of Valentine, and not with Valentine himself? Irenæus declares
the use of the Johannean Gospel to have been a characteristic feature of Valentine's
school; and those names and conceptions already alluded to, which pervaded the whole
system, testify convincingly to this: yet was all this a mere affix to the system?
So much respecting Irenæus. In Hippolytus the expression is even more definite
regarding Valentine. If now it is indisputable that the author does not always discriminate
closely between the sect and the founder of the sect, have we an example of this
in the case 88now under consideration? In those instances. where,
in the course of a consecutive delineation, we are called upon to consider now the
founder and then the sect, is it not more logical to conclude that the founder
and the sect are to be taken as inseparably connected?

From one disciple of Valentine's, Ptolemaus by name, we receive a learned epistle, directed to "Flora." In it, in
conjunction with several quotations from Matthew, is one from the first chapter
of John: "All things were made by him (the Word), and without him was not anything
made that was made, says the apostle." The method employed to rob such quotations
of their force is to make the errorists who use these words as modern as possible;
if it be possible to trace them back only to the close of the second century, the
proofs drawn from them do not accomplish anything more than to substantiate what
is already known, that at that time, as the opponents of the church gladly concede,
the church in its ignorance had fallen into the use of the canon of four Gospels.
But how recent was Ptolemaus's time? 89In all the most ancient sources he appears as one of the most
distinguished
and most influential disciples of Valentine's. As the epoch of the latter was about
the year 140, do we go too far in setting the time of Ptolemaus at about 160 at
the latest? Irenæus (in the second book) and Hippolytus name him in connection with
Herakleon; and, in like manner, Pseudo-Tertullian (in the affix to De prescripitionibus
hærticorum) and Philastrius place him directly after Valentine. Irenæus in all
probability wrote the first and second books of his great work before the year 180,
and in both he concerns himself very much with Ptolemaus.

Here, however, we must
bring in the testimony of Herakleon, the other very eminent disciple of Valentine.
Herakleon wrote all entire commentary on the Gospel of John; his work is known
to us through the many fragments which Origen has woven into his own commentary
on the same Gospel. From these fragments it is plain that Herakleon's object was
carried out with consummate skill, to base the assertions of his school on John:
in this he 90took the course which we have already remarked in
Valentine. Wholly absorbed in his own ideas, he found them reflected in a certain
double sense of Scripture which he traced particularly in John. In the passage,
for example, iii. 12, "after that, he withdrew to Capernaum," he held that there
is an allusion to the domain of material and worldly things to which the Saviour
condescended. The want of susceptibility in this domain of sense he thought to
be indicated by the fact that John has given us no account of what Jesus said or
did while in Capernaum. The Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob was to him the
representative of all souls which feel themselves drawn to what is divine; the water
of Jacob's well, which could not satisfy all spiritual necessities, was the transitory
Judaic economy. The man whom the woman is required to summon is her spiritual complement,
her pleroma, her angel tarrying in the higher world of spirits. The water which
was offered to her indicates the divine life which was poured forth by the Saviour;
the jar of the woman portrays her susceptibility 91for this divine life. Is not this commentary the most striking proof
of the high authority which the Gospel of John must have had even then in the church,
when the very errorists who had turned away from the church so willingly sought
the confirmation of their own ideas in it? And does not this show at a glance the
absurdity of the theory which derives John's Gospel from the school of Valentine?
But the question recurs, How old is Herakleon? It is one which has been urged with
consummate skill against our ancient sacred literature; and the answer has been
given with incredible thoughtlessness, that he was the cotemporary of Origen and
of Hippolytus. Unquestionably the oppressive weight of the matter under discussion
has been experienced, and hence has arisen the blindness to the evidences of antiquity
which are still in existence.6666Compare, with reference to this, the Preface.

Irenæus mentions Herakleon in connection with Ptolemaus6767"Si autem non
prolatum est sed a se generatum est, et simile est et fraternum et eiusdem
honoris id quod est vacuum ei patri, qui prædictus est a Valentino; antiquius
autem et multo ante exsistens et honorificentius reliquis æonibus ipsius
Ptolemæi et Heracleonis, et reliquis omnibus qui eadem opinantur."
in a way which shows him to have been a well-known representative of the school
of Valentine. This acceptation of his words is all the more fully justified by the
fact 92that he makes no further allusion to Herakleon.
Clemens reminds us in the fourth book of his Stromata, written soon after the death
of Commodus (193), of an interpretation given by Herakleon to Luke xii. 8,
and terms him at the same time the most distinguished member6868Ὁ τῆς Οὐαλεντίνου σχολῆς δοκιμώτατος
is the expression of Clemens. of Valentine's
school. Origen states, at the commencement of his citations from Herakleon, that
he was held to be a friend of Valentine's.6969Τὸν Οὐαλεντίνου λεγόμενον εἶναι γνώριμον Ἡρακλέωνα. Hippolytus alludes to him in vi. 29
in the following words: "Valentinus and Herakleon and Ptolemaus and the whole
school of these disciples of Pythagoras and Plato." Epiphanius says (Hær.
41), "Cerdo (the same who, according to Irenæus, iii. 4: 3, was with Valentine in
Rome) follows these (the Ophites, Kainites, Sethians) and Herakleon." According
to this evidence, Herakleon can not be assigned to a date more modern than 150
or 160. The expression which Origen has used of his relations to Valentine must,
according to the usages of speech, be understood as applicable to a personal relation.7070Comp. Orig. contr. Cels. 5.
ὁ Μαρκίωνος γνώριμος Ἀπελλῆς, αἱρέσεώς τινος γενόμενος πατήρ, and the Tert. de
carn. Chr. 1. "Apelles discipulus
et postea desertor ipsius" (id est, Marcionis); Psuedo-Tertull. de præscr. hæret.
LI. "Apelles discipulus Marcionis qui . . . postea . . . a Marcione segregatus est."
Comp. also Hippol. Philosoph. vii. 12.
Epiphanius has certainly erred (an occurrence not often met in him) in 93letting Cerdo, whose epoch must be set at about 140, follow Herakleon;
but we have not the slightest right to suppose that he has made a mistake equal
to the entire length of a man's life, and even more.7171But is the real meaning
of Κέρδων διαδέχεται Ἡρακλέωνα, Cerdo follows
Herakleon? Is it not rather, Cerdo
follows in my work on Herakleon? If any one should happen to be pleased with this
burlesque style of exposition, he will scarcely be able to persuade others of its
excellence. Another discovery on the same side deserves equal credit. Hippolytus
alludes to a contention between the two wings of the Valentinian school in these
words: "The adherents of the Italiotic faction, to which Herakleon and Ptolemy belong, say
thus; the adherents of the oriental faction, to which Axionikus and Bardesanes belong,
thus." "Over this," he goes on to say, "they, and any body else who likes to, may
quarrel." From this the inference is to be drawn not only that this "they" relates
specifically to the above-mentioned heads of factions, but the word ζητείτωσαν,
"may quarrel," indicates that these persons were still living and contending at
the time of Hippolytus. Who could doubt after applying this test that Marcion and
Tertullian were contemporaries, since the latter writes, de carne Chr.: "On such
grounds hast thou probably ventured to put out of the way so many original writings
respecting Christ, Marcion, in order to disprove his existence in the flesh. On
what authority hast thou done this? I ask. If thou art a prophet, then prophesy;
if an apostle, preach openly; if a follower of the apostles, hold fast to them;
and if thou art a Christian, believe what is transmitted to us. But if thou art
none of these, I might rightly say, then die, for thou art already dead; for thou
canst not be a Christian if thou hast not the faith which makes one such." And on this account we may
rejoice in the fact that a Gnostic partisan write a complete commentary on the Gospel
of. John soon after the middle of the second century.

Had this Gospel then freshly
appeared, and was it so flattering to the representatives of the Valentinian Gnosis
that these gave it a cordial welcome? Assuredly it was no light task for them to
draw out of the simple words of John their own profound system. And it is not a
little remarkable that the church thoroughly shared in the fancies of the errorists
who had wandered so far out of the way. In addition to this, there were those who
knew that John had duly died at Ephesus without leaving behind any such legacy as
a Gospel, and that such a work as it was could not have lain hid till that late
day in a corner. If the reader was not able to come to an understanding with himself 94in this wondrous
thought-structure, he only
confirmed this fact, that the commentary of Herakleon is one of the strongest proofs
that then, when. it was written, the Gospel of John had long been revered as one
of the hallowed writings of the church, so that it seemed to Herakleon a thing
of special importance to show that this apostolic document, if it should be rightly
interpreted, must be used to confirm the system of Valentine.

While dealing with
Valentine, or, according to the order of time, before reaching Valentine, we encounter
Basilides, the period of whose activity occurs, according to Eusebius, at the epoch
of Hadrian. With all his exhaustive speculations on the Primeval, and the secret,
incomprehensible and lofty forces which spring from it with living impulse, with
all his meditations on the principles of light and darkness, life and death, his
method of grasping the subject of faith allied him by a close bond with the adherents
of time church, who stood on a lower platform, so far as profession is concerned,
than was the case with Valentine. 95One of his chief productions appears to be a commentary in twenty-four
books on the Gospel. Eusebius (iv. 7) infers the existence of this work from
the statements of a cotemporaneous opponent of Basilides, Agrippa Castor by name.
Fragments from his book appear to have been preserved by Clemens, Origen, Epiphanius,
and the so-called Archelaus Disputation. Has this work any relation to the subject
now under review? It certainly appears to have. For the expression quoted by
Eusebius from Agrippa Castor, that Basilides wrote twenty-four books7272See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 7: φησὶν (Agrippa Castor) αὐτὸν εἰς μὲν τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τέσσαρα
πρὸς τοῖς εἴκοσι συντάξαι βιβλία. Even if nothing. more
definite is to be determined respecting the book of Basilides, it is a fact of weight
that Agrippa Castor had already made use of the same expression, from which we
learn with certainty that some centuries later he indicated the collective character
of our Gospels. "on the
Gospel," almost compels us to turn our thoughts to those Gospels which, according
to that earliest form of speech which comes to light even in Justin and Irenæus,
were designated as "the Gospel," even although the Gospel of the Hebrews, passing
under the name of Matthew, was the substitute for our Matthew. That this view
of the work of Basilides, on the skeptical side, is simply ludicrous, may be seen
at a glance. Still it is in harmony with what we gather from the letters of Ignatius,
from Polycarp, and from Justin, 96respecting the place which the Gospels held
in the first half of the second century. The fragments which have been alluded
to do not invalidate this view, but rather confirm it. So, too, what Clemens cites
(Strom. 3: 1) as from Basilides is closely connected with Matt. xix. 11, 12;7373When the apostles were asking whether it is better
not to marry, the story is that the Lord answered: "Not all can understand this,
for there are eunuchs who are so from their birth, others are compelled to be so,
and others still have made themselves eunuchs for the everlasting kingdom's sake."
The last words are supplemented by what is found in Clemens. In like manner the
same expression is cited by the Nikolaites in Epiphanius 25:6. Another extract found
in Clemens "from the 23d book of the Exegetica of Basilides," contains no passage
to be compared with this, nor does that in the Archelaus-disputation. the
quotation from Basilides, found in Epiphanius (Hær. 24: 5), is in direct alliance
with Matt. vii. 6;7474On this account he says, "Do not throw your pearls before swine, nor give that
which is holy to the dogs." that found in Origen in the commentary (lib. v. cap. 5) to
the Epistle to the Romans begins with the words from Romans vii. 9; his words are,
"For the apostle has said, 'Once I lived without the law.'" From this we infer
the general connection of Basilides with our New Testament.7575 That Jerome (in the pref. to Matt.
and likewise in his translation of the first Homily of Origen on Luke, according
to Jerome, also, Ambrosius on Luke) mentions an original Gospel of Basilides, probably
rests only upon the acceptance of the 24 books of the Gospel as of a Gospel in a certain sense apocryphal; we must therefore
consider the secret communications of Matthew, which according to Hippolytus were
extolled by Basilides and his followers, as that Gospel of Basilides. See vii. 25. "As it is written, 'And the creation itself groaneth and travaileth
together, waiting for the manifestation of the children of God."' (Rom. viii. 22
and 19.) "That is the . . . wisdom of which he says the Scripture asserts, 'Not with
words which human wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth."' 1 Cor. ii. 13.
Reference is made to the same in Eph. iii. 3 and 5, and 2 Cor. xii. 4.

To this must be added
what we learn through the Philosophumena of Hippolytus concerning Basilides.
This
work contains a detailed account of him, having direct quotations from Paul7676See vii. 26. "That is it, he says, which is written: 'The Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, . . . and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."' The allusion
to Matthew is in vii. 22, and relates to the account of the star seen by the wise
men. and
Luke,7777See vii. 20. "Basilides, therefore, and Isodorus, Basilides'
own son and disciple, assert that Matthias transmitted to them certain secret communications
which he had received from the Saviour as a special charge. We shall see how openly
Basilides as well as Isodorus and their whole crowd of followers calumniate not
only Matthias but the Saviour also." This is at the commencement of his
representation of Basilides, and his school. And just so often as he has occasion,
in what follows, to mention Basilides, he is to be understood as alluded to in the
same strain as at the outset. an allusion to Matthew, and two passages from John. In vii. 22, we read,
"And that is what is said in the Gospels, 'he was the true Light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world."' John i. 9.
97In this passage the expression "in the Gospels" is entitled to its
due weight: it presupposes the existence of the evangelical canon hinted at in the
other forms of quotation, such as "the Scripture says," and "it is written." Furthermore,
in vii. 27, we find the expression "That everything has its time" is amply confirmed
by the words of the Saviour, when he says, "My hour is not yet come." John ii. 4.
Does not this bring into perplexity those who are so certain that at the time of
Basilides not a word of John's Gospel was written? But no; there is a ready way
out of this difficulty. That to which the words, "in the Gospel it is said," give
a happy indication, is made to mean, (because, forsooth, no trace of a collection
of Gospels can be traced back to that epoch,) that Hippolytus is not dealing with
the genuine Basilides, but with a Basilidian document which was the product of
his own time. Without entering upon an investigation of that discrimination
which Hippolytus, who is so familiar with all that pertains to the ancient
heretics, has made between his Basilides and the one yet 98more ancient, we must at least grant that he has
made distinct and explicit7878See Theodoret. Quæst. xlix. in libr.
iv. Regum: "On this account I believe that the Ophites are called Naassenians."
The only mention of the Ophites in Hippolytus is viii. 20:
Εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔτεραί
τινες αἱρέσεις ὀνομάζονται
Καϊνῶν, Ὀφιτῶν ἢ
Νοαχαϊτῶν (Νοαχιτῶν?) καὶ
ἑτέρων τοιούτων οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον
ἥγημαι τὰ ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν λεγόμενα ἢ
γινόμενα ἐκθέσθαι, etc. From this there can
scarcely any inference be drawn, except that to Hippolytus the name of Ophites seemed
quite secondary compared with that of Naassenians. reference to the older Basilides, and that he is not
satisfied with his reader's accepting any other. Are we to suppose that it was a
simple matter for the man who had been the disciple of Irenæus, and had died in
the year 235, to err so singularly, while in the latest years of his life he was
preparing a work drawn from first sources, as to ascribe to Basilides at the time
of Hadrian what had been added during his own time by the followers of Basilides?
Are we able to determine with certainty when the old system left off and the new
began? And if we deny them both, and dare give credence to Hippolytus, we must admit
that he has done us a great service in showing conclusively that Basilides and his
school recognized the Gospels as books of ecclesiastical authority long before the
middle of the second century, and expressly made use of the Gospel of John for his
ends.

We come to the same result if we trace the relations of other Gnostic sects,
the Naasenians and the Perates for example. The first derive
99their name from the Hebrew word naas, a snake, corresponding
to the Greek Ophites. While the last name was long used by Irenæus and others,
that
of Naasenians began to be made current (aside from reference of Theodoret)7979The same division
of the sentence is followed by many of our oldest textual documents, namely, the
oldest patristic extracts. through
the Philosophumena of Hippolytus. That the Naasenians were nothing but a fraction
of the Ophites is not at all substantiated by the efforts made to support this hypothesis,
and is wholly disproved by the statement of Hippolytus, who put the Naasenians and
the Perates at the head of the Gnostics, giving them precedence before Simon Magus,
the Valentinians, and Basilides, but, as he states expressly (v. 6), assigning them
priority over all the other Gnostics. But while we place the opinion of Hippolytus
above the doubts which negative criticism has raised, we yet reckon among the most
valuable comments on the Gospels the following excerpts made by Hippolytus from
the writings of the Naasenians living in the first half of the second century.
In v. 8 he has this: "For all things, he asserts, (the writer of the Naasenian
document) have been made by the same hand, 100and without that hand is nothing made. And what
is made in him8080We do not add to the above all the
peculiar Gnostic explanations appended to the passages in the original. is Life."8181In connection with these extracts we must call particular attention to
the fact that they quite often unite a free transposition of the text with a strictly close repetition of
the words. They reveal in this a striking similarity to the citations of Justin.
The same kind of quotations from Matthew and the other synoptic Gospels compel us
to draw an immediate inference as to an extra-canonical source. Does not the analogy
with these Gnostic and almost contemporaneous extracts from John show how little
such a hasty conclusion as to the Justinian citation is justified? Or are we, in
the case of the quotation given above from John vi. 53, to draw a conclusion as
to that extra-canonical source, because, in entire analogy with Justin's quotation
from John vi. 51, the concluding words, "ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,"
are given instead of John's "you have no life in you"? In another passage: "That it is which we have learned
of the Saviour, 'Except ye drink my blood and eat my flesh, ye shall not enter
the kingdom of heaven (John vi. 53); Except ye drink the cup which I drink (Mark
x. 38; Matt. xx. 22); Whither I go ye can not come.'" John viii. 21. Soon after
he says, "His voice we have heard indeed, but his form have we not seen." John
iii. 8; v. 37. In the same connection we find, "Touching this our Saviour says,
'No man can come to me except my heavenly Father draw him.'" John vi. 44. Again,
v. 9, "For, says he, God is a Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit." Cf. John iv. 21, 24.
Soon after we meet the words, "But if thou knewest who it is that asks thee, thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." Connected
with these passages, so evidently from John, there are others from Matthew (vii.
6, 13,14; 101iii. 10;
xiii. 3, et sq.), and from Paul's Epistles (1 Cor.
ii. 13, 14; 2 Cor. xii. 2, et sq.)

We ought not to refrain from adding to these Naasenian citations from John and found in Hippolytus, what is given to us in
the
writings of the Ophites, in that pseudo-Tertullianic document (Append. to Text de
præscr. hæret.) which those who lean to the Philosophumena believe to be drawn
from a writing still more ancient. The quotation from John stands in the closest
relation to that glorification of the serpent from which the sect of Naasenians
derives its name; and all the more forcibly are we compelled to assign to the founder
of the sect, and not to some later effort from it, the application of the passage
from John. In the pseudo-Tertullian (chap. 47 of the document de præscr. hær.)
it is expressly stated, "To these must be added those heresiarchs who are called Ophites, i. e., Serpent-men. These pay such
honors to the serpent that they place
it even before Christ. For to the serpent, they say, we owe the beginning of our
knowledge of good and evil. When Moses comprehended 102the greatness and power of the serpent, he elevated
one of brass, and all who looked upon it were made whole. Besides this, they assert
that even Christ hints at the sacredness of the serpent, when he says, 'And as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted
up.'" John iii. 14. We meet the same passage, as I shall presently show, in the
literature of the Perates. For just as from the writings of the Naasenians many
passages were selected by Hippolytus, so were many also taken from those of the
Perates, especially such as were originally derived from the Gospel of John. I need
cite but two of these, Art. v. 12. "For the Son of man is not come into the world
to condemn the world, but that through him the world might be saved." John iii.
17; v. 16. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of man also be lifted up." John iii. 14.8282With
reference to this, see a previous note. Tertullian adv. Marcion, i. 19, writes:
Cum igitur sub Antonino primus Marcion hunc deum induxerit. . . . The determination
of dates in Marcion's works is a matter presenting the gravest difficulties. Although
the "invaluit sub Aniceto" of Irenæus iii. 4: 3 is not to be applied to his appearance
at Rome, yet there is a contradiction still remaining involving a statement of Clemens
(Strom. vii. 17), who places Marcion before Basilides and Valentine. As the latter
position appears to be sustained by the recent striking discovery of a memorandum
of Philastrius (hær. 45, qui, i. e. Marcion, devictus atque fugatus a beato Johanne
evangelista), . . . so the same appears to be corroborated by the recent exhuming of
the unquestionably ante-Jerome prologue to John, of which I shall have occasion
to speak when I come to the Papias problem. Manifestly we have to deal with a primitive
tradition running hack to a time antedating Marcion's earliest activity and his
removal to Rome.

I have as yet made no mention of
Marcion, a man whose nature and activities were strangely divided between the faith
of the church and the Gnostic heresy. It is the more necessary for me 103to allude to him because use has been made of his writings in a way
entirely at variance with my own convictions. He was born at Sinope, on the Black
Sea, the celebrated Pontine capital of that time, in the early part of the second
century. Subsequently to the year 128 he appears to have inculcated his peculiar
doctrines at Rome; and, making it his special purpose to sever Judaism from Christianity,
he undertook to eliminate from the apostolic writings everything which favored the
former. In consequence of a statement which has come down to us from antiquity,
that this writer made a collection of sacred writings (which may have taken place
before the middle of the second century, between 130 and 140),8383See Iren. iii. 2 and 12, where the assertion
is made by the heresiarchs with specific reference to Marcion: Dicentes se . . . sinceram invenisse veritatem. Apostolos enim admiscuisse
ea quæ sunt legalia Salvatoris
verbis. (iii. 2: 2.) Et apostolos quidem adhuc quæ sunt Judæorum sentientes annuntiasse
evangelium, se autem sinceriores et prudentiores apostolis esse. Unde et Marcion
et qui ab eo sunt ad intercidendas conversi sunt scripturas, quasdam quidem in totum
non cognoscentes, secundum Lucam autem evangelium et epistolas Pauli decurtantes,
hæc sola legitima esse dicant quæ ipsi minoraveruint. (iii. 12: 12.) Similar
words in Tert. adv. Marc. iv. 3. Sed enim Marcion nactus epistolam Pauli ad Galatas,
etiam ipsos apostolos suggilantis ut non recto pede incedentes ad veritatem evangelii,
simul et accusantis pseudapostolos quosdam pervertentes evangelium Christi,
connititur ad destruendum statum eorum evangeliorum, quæ propria et sub apostolorum nomine edantur vel etiam apostolicorum,
ut scilicet
fidem quam illis adimit suo conferat. and that he admitted
into this collection only the Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul's Epistles, making
such changes, moreover, in the text of them all as compelled them to suit his ideas,
many scholars have supposed that this was the very first collection of sacred writings
made by the church, and that the Gospel which he admitted into his collection was
not Luke's, but was the as 104model which was followed when the one which we
possess and call Luke's Gospel was written, and that he had no acquaintance with
our other Gospels, including that ascribed to John.

All three of these positions
we hold to be utterly untenable. The first of them, which gives to Marcion the priority
in making a collection of New Testament Scriptures for the use of the church, rests
upon a complete ignoring of the development of the canon; the elements of this development,
as my own researches reveal them, I shall take occasion to sum up and present on
a future page. It also rests upon an ignoring of the point of view which Marcion
took in relation to the church. Taking his stand upon the ground of Paul's expressions
in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians respecting those departures
from the purity of the faith which were beginning to be manifested among the apostles
themselves, he believed himself called, in the Pauline sense of the word, to the
task of purging the Christian faith of Jewish elements.8484See Iren. iii. 1:1 (also
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 8): Et Lucas autem, sectator Pauli, quod ab illo prædicabatur
evangelium in libro condidit. Tert. adv. Marc. iv. 5. Nam
et Lucæ digestum Paulo
adscribere solent. In like manner Orig. in Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi. 25; Eus. iii.
4 and Hier. de viris illustrib. cap. 7: in all these three passages the assertion
is distinctly made that it was then understood that Paul indicated Luke's Gospel
when he spoke of his Gospel. Rom. ii. 16. Here belongs also Ps.-Orig. Dial. contr.
Marcionit., sect. i. (Or. opp. ed. Delarue, vol. i. p. 808), where, to the question
of the Orthodox man who asks, "Who wrote the Gospel of which thou sayest that it
is the only one?" the Marcionite replies, "Christ," and to the second question,
"Did the Lord himself write 'I was crucified and rose again on the third day'?"
the answer is, "That was added by the apostle Paul." In executing this undertaking
nothing was more effective than 105the laying of a correcting hand, upon those writings which even then
were accepted as the valid standards of belief among the adherents of Christianity.
The correctness of this mode of procedure, employed even by the oldest fathers of
the church, was confirmed in a striking manner in his dealing with the Pauline Gospels.
It is confirmed, moreover, by his treatment of Luke's Gospel, of which I shall have
occasion to speak further on. And does it not harmonize entirely with his purpose,
that he excluded other New Testament writings from his canon? It is possible that
in one or another of the excluded documents the same anti-judaical spirit would
have led to like results; yet it is perfectly conceivable, and is not open to our
criticism, that in his devotion to Paul he contented himself with accepting ten
of his Epistles and that Gospel, whose author, owing to his being a companion and
helper of Paul, owed a great deal to the influence exerted upon him by Paul, so
that his work might almost be called the Gospel according to Paul.8585See A. Ritschl
(Prof. at Gottingen) in the Jahrb. f. deutsch. Theol. 1866, 2. p. 355: so is he
(i. e. Prof. Tischendorf) unable naturally to convince himself that in a remote
province like Pontus there could not be without a degree of personal fault a more
limited acquaintance with Christian books than in other provinces of the church.

Very recently8686Had the Gospel of John appeared in Gottingen or in some other celebrated
University-city of Germany, I should have been more able to take this charge home
to myself.
the statement has been made 106with consummate naïveté, that Marcion, sojourning
in a remote province like Pontus, enjoyed a limited accessibility to Christian books,
and that in making his collection he accumulated the greatest amount of materials
that his scanty advantages allowed. The distance of that province, which at the
time of Pliny comprised a very large population of Jews as well as of Christians,
from the two centers of Christian Asia Minor, Ephesus and Antioch, is not greater
than from Naples to Milan; and who in all the world, except a short-sighted professor,
would draw the inference that a scholar, living in Pontus, during the fourth decade
of the second century, making a collection of the Christian sacred books, was not
acquainted with all our Gospels? The Epistles to the Corinthians and to the Romans
were diffused and accepted; and yet we are to believe that the Gospel of John had
not found its way from Ephesus to Sinope!8787See Iren. i. 27:2: Et super hæc id, quod est secundum
Lucam evangelium circumcidens etc. III. 12:12: Unde et Marcion et qui ab eo sunt . . .
secundum Lucam autem evangelium et epistolas Pauli decurtantes. Tertull. adv. Marcion,
iv. 2: Ex iis quos habemus Lucam videtur Marcion elegisse quem cæderet. Porro Lucas
non apostolus sed apostolicus. . . Ibid, iv. 4: Quod ergo pertinet ad evangelium interim
Lucæ, quatenus communio eius inter nos et Marcionem de veritate disceptat, adeo
antiquius est quod est secundum nos. . . Si enim id evangelium quod Lucæ refertur,
penes nos (viderimus an et penes Marcionem) ipsum est quod Marcion per antitheses
suas arguit, ut interpolatum a protectoribus Judaismi . . . utique non potuisset arguere
nisi quod invenerat. Epiph. hær. xlii. 11. Finally, the theory which rests on
the remoteness of Pontus loses all its force in helping us solve the question under
discussion, from the fact that 107after Marcion went to Rome, and took a high position there, he did
not modify at all what he had done in forming his collection of sacred writings.
At Rome he would assuredly have been able to supply the lack of materials from which
he is alleged to have suffered at Pontus; but we do not learn that he made any addition
to his canon after coming to Rome.

The second of the positions mentioned above,
that the gospel of Marcion served as a model for that which we now accept as Luke's—a position which bears the clearest evidence
from the outset of being the result
of reckless ignorance—has been surrendered in our own time by its own defenders.
Still it is asserted by some scholars that our Gospel according to Luke, like that
of Marcion, is a modified form of one still older but subsequently lost; that that
of Marcion consequently did not spring from Luke's, but that they both originated
in a common source, to which Marcion remained true. Going in this direction one
step further, they succeeded in finding in Marcion the oldest of all the Gospel
Codices. This view, entirely apart 108from the last mentioned bold act of an intoxicated
fancy, is in opposition to what Irenæus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius say8888See Tertull. adv.
Marc. iv. 2: Marcion evangelio scilicet suo nullum adscribit auctorem. . . . regarding
Marcion's gospel, which they possessed; in consequence, however, of the ignorance
prevailing respecting Marcion's labors, and in consequence also of some indemonstrable
hypotheses, it has gained a certain appearance of truth and consequent acceptance.
The efforts to strike out the subsequent additions from our Gospel of Luke for the
purpose of restoring the supposed older original, suffer from that arbitrariness
which modern hypercriticism has assumed in all discussion of the origin of the Gospels.
The fact that Marcion gave no name8989See a previous note. to his Gospel is made to give support to the
claim that it is the only true Gospel, and is entitled to no influence in directing
our researches respecting this Gospel.

We come to the third position, a refutation
of which will throw light upon both of the others. Marcion is asserted to have not
possessed the other Gospels, including that of John. If Marcion found the other
Gospels in their main 109form, just as we possess them now, in the possession of the church
of his time, the view of the priority of his collection over the primitive canon
of the church falls to the ground; and equally frail is the hypothesis respecting
the parallelism between the Gospel according to Marcion and our Luke, together
with the consequences drawn therefrom respecting the authority of our canon in its
present form; and so there is gained no insignificant proof of the high antiquity
and the genuineness of the Gospel according to John.

What grounds have we for believing
that Marcion was acquainted with our Gospels? All that Irenæus and Tertullian still
more explicitly have told us in reference to this matter makes it certain. For where
Irenæus (i. 27, 2) writes concerning Marcion, that in opposition to his pupils he
held his trustworthiness greater than that of the apostles, who transmitted the
Gospel (qui evangelium tradiderunt), inasmuch as he did not give the (whole) Gospel,
but a part of the Gospel (non evangelium, sed particulam evangelii), the meaning
is, 110according to Irenæus's use of language else. where
(i. 27, 2), that Marcion gave his disciples only one of the Gospels, namely, that
of Luke. That by the expressions "evangelium" and "particulam evangelii" we are
to understand the Gospels, and not the Sermon on the Mount, is shown by another
passage of his work (iii. 12, 12), where, in reference to Marcion and other heresiarchs,
we read, "The apostles have spread the Gospel abroad filled with Jewish prejudices
(adhuc quæ sunt Judæorum sentientes): and these are even more fair and wise than
the apostles." Irenæus then goes on to say, "On this account Marcion and his adherents
have made it their aim to diminish the extent of the sacred books (ad intercidendas
scripturas conversi sunt), some of which they lave entirely rejected, while they
have reduced the size of Luke's Gospel and Paul's Epistles, insisting that the scriptures
which they have retained and revised are the only ones which are to be accepted."
These statements of Irenæus have no twofold meaning, and are not susceptible of
two interpretations. He evidently presupposes 111a familiar knowledge on the part of the reader
of what he means by the "reducing of the sacred books," and by a "non-recognition" of some of them: and in order to understand
what he means we have only to take
his own point of view.

Tertullian's admissions are much more to the purpose, although
in his case we have to bear in mind that he is not writing for critical scholars,
who are accustomed to avail themselves of every lack in a complete chain of evidence
to help support their own views. After citing (adv. Marc. iv. 3) Marcion's misuse
of the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians (see a previous page), he
says: "Connititur ad destruendum statum eorum evangeliorum quæ propria et sub apostolorum nomine eduntur vel etiam apostolicorum,
ut scilicet fidem quam illis
adimit suo conferat." Among the Gospels which he designates as those "which bear
the name of apostles, or men of apostolic character," are to be understood the four
which we possess, unless we purposely misinterpret Tertullian's words. Shortly before
(iv. 2), he had in the 112most definite language9090See adv. Marc. iv. 5: Cur non hæc quoque (cætera evangelia) Marcion attigit,
aut emendanda si adulterata, aut agnoscenda si integra? Nam et competit ut, si qui
evangelium pervertebant, eorum magis curarent perversionem quorum sciebant auctoritatem
receptiorem. Likewise, De carne Chr. 2: Rescindendo quod retro credidisti, sicut
et ipse confiteris in quadam epistola. Directly before this we have, however,
Tot originalia instrumenta Christi, Marcion, delere ausus es. designated the Gospels
as books which had been written by actual apostles, such as Matthew and John, as
well as by men of apostolic dignity, such as Mark and Luke. In order to escape
the
force of this striking testimony of Tertullian, without accusing him of ignorance
or falsification, an unfortunate attempt has been made to get rid of the difficulty
by asserting that apocryphal Gospels are here meant, bearing unauthenticated names
of apostles. Whoever listens for an instant to such a plea—and how one can is hardly
to be imagined—must hold as not genuine the closing words of Tertullian, "and
expressly to ascribe to his own testimony the credibility which he denies to theirs
[the apostolic evangelists]." Tertullian repeats, moreover, respecting the passages
from Matthew's Gospel, "Marcion has stricken this from the Gospel." Comp. adv.
Marc. ii. 17; iv. 7. In the passage quoted on a previous page, de carne Chr. 2,
the words, "tot originalia instrumenta Christi, Marcion, delere ausus es," are used
in direct relation to the first chapters of Matthew and Luke. Adv. 113Marcion iv. 5 he complains of Marcion on the ground
that instead of availing himself of Luke (a Gospel at second hand), he did not at
once take up those whose authority (as the work of actual apostles) he knew to be
higher.9191See
De carne Chr. 2, in the previous note; see also adv. Marc. iv. 4. De carn. Christ. 3, he says, "If thou hadst not purposely rejected or
changed the reading of the writings which are opposed to thy system, the Gospel
of John would surely have convinced thee in this matter." We find attention called
finally to an epistle of Marcion, from the contents of which Tertullian establishes
conclusively the fact that Marcion once accepted what he subsequently rejected.9292See adv. Marc. iv. 4. Quid si
nec epistolam agnoverint?

From all this it is established with the utmost certainty that Tertullian subjected
Marcion to weighty reproaches for rejecting the Gospels (including John, once expressly
named) which he had once accepted, and which Tertullian, in common with the church,
continued to hold. Au epistle of Marcion which he thought might possibly be disavowed
by the followers of Marcion9393See
Ritschl in Jahrb. für deutsche Theol. i. a. 1. "The African was, however, great in
his malicious perversion of the assertions of his heretical opponents, and whoever
has followed the course of his onslaught upon Marcion must know how much he had
to draw from Tertullian's expression, in order to establish the historical fact
which he wanted to make good. If Marcion complained of the depravatio evangelii
and gave himself out as the emendator evangelii, he meant by
evangelium the regula fidei,
Christianity as a common belief; which
he wanted to purify from the Judaic additions made by the anti-Pauline school.
And since Marcion. did not defend the Gospel canon which was known to Tertullian,
the latter drew the inference that he was opposing the value of this collection
on the ground of being a reformer of it. served to show him what was the
character of the man. The question naturally comes 114up, Is Tertullian entitled to credibility in this
affair?

It is now difficult to set aside the claims of those who have enacted the
history of the primitive Christian church, on a basis of anti-ecclesiastical prejudices
and fancies. Polemical zeal, united with a certain passionate force of conviction,
sometimes carried the great African polemic too far, and made him unjust to the
heretical opponents whom he had to confute. But is this general fact enough to warrant
us in crying out that here he is making false inferences? Men have even the hardihood
to say—for shamelessness is now an extinct idea—that what Tertullian states
with all correctness must be set to the account of "malicious persecution."9494See adv. Marc. iv. 4:
Emendator sane evangelii (this is consequently Tertullian's own statement, from
which there is an effort to prove his misunderstanding of the matter) a Tiberianis
usque ad Antoniana tempora everti Marcion solus et primus obvenit, exspectatus
tam diu a Christo, pœnitente iam quod apostolos præmisisse properasset sine
præsidio Marcionis; nisi quod humanæ temeritatis, non divinæ auctoritatis negotium
est hæresis, quæ sic semper emendat evangelia dum vitiat.
That what Tertullian advances finds powerful support in Irenæus is plain; but when
the clearest and most evident matters are made to assume an obscure appearance,
how much easier to bring under suspicion the passages from Irenæus, which hint at
more than they openly express. Is anything plainer than that the reform9595Τὸν μὲν
παράκλητον Μοντανὸν αυχοῦντες. which
Marcion endeavored to 115carry into the Gospels aimed specifically at correcting
the canonical writings of the New Testament? Did Tertullian need the help of schoolmasters
more than we do, to know that "evangelium" has other meanings than a written record?
And is the accusation brought against Marcion, that he rejected the apostolic records,
which were well known to him, and which even bore the authenticated names of apostles,
and that he made arbitrary changes in Luke as well as in the Pauline Epistles, anything
else than empty inference? And why is this attempt made? Is not the object to get
rid of the truth, to undermine and destroy the force of one of the most important
means of substantiating the primitive authority of our Gospels, more especially
that of John? Those readers who are not specially engaged in prosecuting learned
researches need nothing more than what has already been given to qualify them for
passing judgment on this matter. Such readers ought to use every occasion to ascertain
what the character of the learning is, 116which those professors sustain who make it their
task to decry the authenticity of the Gospels.

One of the most interesting phenomena
in the church, and one of lasting influence, was Montanism. Its aim was to stem
the violent tide of Gnosticism, which was swamping the simple older faith with philosophic
speculation, and sought to benefit men by giving them a deep inward and direct apprehension
of divine truth. Taking a stand not only against foreign speculations but equally
against the traditional deadness of an external ecclesiasticism, it, like Gnosticism,
at length shot above the church through its exaltation of a fanatical spirit of
prophecy, above the tranquil and orderly development of Christianity through doctrines
of the new birth and spiritual illumination.

If, following the object which I have
in view, we ask what place Montanism took in relation to the writings of the New
Testament, the greatest difficulty in the way of finding an answer lies in the fact
that we are scarcely in a position to make a general discrimination between the
form which had been given at the end 117of the second century by means of Tertullian's reformatory character,
to the theological system then existing, and that which it had assumed at the outset
ill Syria. The account given by Eusebius, although drawn from fragments dating from
the comparatively recent time of Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180), and that of Epiphanius,
which aimed more distinctively at a confutation of opponents, are of a very incomplete
character. The little which Irenæus has respecting this matter is hinted at in
such various fashion that one hint only darkens the meaning of another. The scanty
allusions in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus give rise to the suspicion that they
relate rather to Tertullian's epoch than to the beginning of Montanism in the year
150.

The distinctive question which meets us here is this: Has Montanism from the
very first appropriated to itself, independently of John's Gospel, that prophetic
spirit which was poured out, as is averred, on Montanus, his female companions,
and his followers, and which stood in intimate connection with the Paraclete which 118was promised by the Saviour to his disciples
(John xiv. 16, 26)? The wanton character of Phrygian fanaticism leads us to suspect that
the letter of Scripture was held in no regard; and the extracts quoted in Eusebius
(v. 16 to 19), as well as the document of Epiphanius, contain nothing which can
give us any light in this matter. It is quite otherwise with what Eusebius, and,
long before him, Irenæus and Hippolytus record.9696Alii vero ut donum
spiritus frustrentur, quod in novissimis temporibus secundum placitum patris, effusum
est in humanum genus, illam speciem (the account of the "quadriforme evangelium."
went before, to whose four "species" there is a subsequent reference) non admittunt quae est secundum Johannis evangelium,
in
qua paracletum se missurum dominus promisit; sed simul et evangelium et propheticum
repellunt spiritum. Infelices vere qui pseudoprophetas (a better reading assuredly
than pseudoprophetæ) quidem esse volunt, propheticam vero gratiam repellunt ab
ecclesia; similia patientes his, qui propter eos qui in hypocrisi veniunt etiam
a fratrum communicatione se abstinent. In Irenæus (iii. 11, 9) we read:
"But others, in order to do away with the gift of the Spirit, which, according
to the counsel of the Father, is poured out on all flesh, do not accept that promise
made in the Gospel of John, that the Lord will send down the Paraclete, casting
away not only this prophetic gift, but the Gospel as well which records its sending.
It is truly their misfortune that, while granting that there are false prophets,
they yet deny to the church the true and real gift of prophecy; it is with them
as with those who, because there are hypocrites in the church, withhold themselves
from all fraternal converse with the brethren."9797Otherwise the Montanists
and their most decided followers must have met in their rejection of the Gospel
of John. There is not only no support for this view, involving as it does the grossest
contradictions, but it contradicts as well what Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Eusebius
have recorded respecting the connection of the Paraclete with the Montanist prophetic
spirit. And had the Montanists thrown away the Gospel of John at the outset, how
would it be clear that in Tertullian, the reformer of Montanism, we find (without
the least trace of a contrast to the earlier Montanism) the Gospel of John standing
in the closest connection with Montanism? Besides, all which is expressed in the
passage of Irenæus applies just as appositely to the opponents of Montanism, as
it is inapposite and incomprehensible when it is made to refer to the Montanists.
The reference of this passage 119to the Montanists we hold in common with Lucke and others as not
at all made out;9898Neander (Hist. of the Christian Church, 1856, 3d ed.) remarks in allusion to the
Irenæus passage,
which he understands just as I do: "Irenæus, from whom we receive our first knowledge
respecting this party [the Alogians], assuredly says too much when he states that
they rejected the Gospel of John in consequence of the passage relating to the Paraclete.
That passage alone certainly could not have led to this, for they only made use
of it, as was the case with others, to limit it to the apostles, in order to take
away the support from beneath the Montanists. But since they, if those words of
Christ were brought against them with a Montanist interpretation, stigmatized the
whole document which contained them as not genuine, the inference was a quick one
that, in consequence of a kind of legerdemain only too common in theological discussion,
they had in consequence of this passage rejected the whole Gospel." but we regard the argument as conclusive, that the opponents
of the Montanists, wittily called by Epiphanius, in a double use of language, Alogians,
are meant. Epiphanius also bears evidence that the Alogians rejected the Gospel
and the Apocalypse of John. But if it is a real characteristic of the opponents
of Montanism, that they rejected John's Gospel, it is entirely probable that this
was the result of the connection between the prophetic Spirit of the Montanists
and the Paraclete of that Gospel It is not credible that the Alogians first brought
this connection into view; according to the words of Irenæus, previously cited,
it is certain that he was already of the opinion that the Alogians had rejected
this Gospel simply because of this connection, and because it seemed to be drawn
from John. Irenæus may be incorrect in his supposition that this was the only or
the main ground for the Alogians' rejection9999Adv. Prax. 13, he says Nos paracleti, non hominum discipuli. Comp. further
De resurrect. carn. 63 (per novam prophetiam de paracleto inundantem), and many other
passages. of this Gospel; but Epiphanius bears
witness that they could not account for the want of accordance 120between John's and the synoptic Gospels. To me,
however, it seems to be necessarily inferred from the statements of Irenæus that
he presupposes that the Montanists themselves brought their prophetical Spirit into
harmony with the Paraclete of John's Gospel, and therefore made use of the latter
document. Lastly, we have a statement of Hippolytus hinted at; it is found in the
Philosoph. viii. 19, and runs as follows: "The Phrygian heresiarchs have been infatuated
by Priscilla and Maximilla, whom they hold to be prophetesses because they aver
that the Paraclete has entered into them."

How then lies the matter? The short extracts
given by Eusebius from the writings of early opponents contain nothing in reference
to the connection between the Montanists' prophetical Spirit and the Paraclete of
John; no more do the refutations of Epiphanius; but Irenæus, Hippolytus, Tertullian,100100Irenæus states (iii. 3: 4) that the story was repeated
after Polycarp that John once encountered Cerinth while bathing, but instantly left
the bath with these words, "Let us get out; the bath might come to pieces with such an enemy to truth in it as Cerinth is."
That two
hundred years later Epiphanius attributed this anecdote to "Ebion" has no weight
when set over against the authority of Irenæus. For the statement of Epiphanius
(hær. 28: 2) that Cerinth once had communication with Peter, and that he was one
of those who criticised his relations with the Gentile centurion Cornelius, there
is no earlier voucher.
and Eusebius are united in averring that this connection did exist; and the fact
that the Alogians rejected the Gospel of John, according to the statement of
Irenæus,
assuredly harmonizes with the 121honor which was paid by the Montanists to this Gospel.

Yet there
has been the same effort to pervert the relation of Montanism to John's Gospel as
in the system of Valentine; at least the suspicion has been bruited that that Gospel
could only have emanated from the same circle of theological ideas and be the result
of the same movement which gave rise to Montanism. What a chaotic confusion of thoughts
is there in such a charge as this! what a senseless opposition to John's credibility
is betrayed in the effort to pervert and falsify the evidences which go to establish
his authenticity! Let us suppose for a minute that John's Gospel sprang into existence
like Montanism about the year 150. De spite the fact that the lateness of its appearance
must make it seem like the work of a pious fraud, and that in its whole structure
and in its details it was unlike the earlier Gospels, the church, no less than those
who opposed the church, and especially the Montanists, accepted it with full confidence.
To one little sect alone did it fall to raise difficulties between the older 122Gospel and the more recent one, and in consequence
to reject the latter, and yet without gaining either credit or prominence by the
act. And is it true that there is clear accordance between the Montanist doctrine
and that of John's Gospel? Not in the least. Aside from the fact that the points
where they harmonize relate almost exclusively to the idea of the Paraclete (an
idea which appears in the Gospel without any full development, while in Montanism
we are directed rather to the catholicizing notions entertained by Tertullian than
to those held earlier), the divergence between Montanism and John's Gospel is as
great as that between an ecclesiastic prototype and a heretical copy.

In addition
to this, the opponents of Montanism already named give noticeable testimony against
this and similar depreciations of John's Gospel in the middle of the second century,
at the time of the Montanist movement. They knew nothing about the story of the
Gospel of John being a new thing first ushered into being in their time; they ascribed
both the Gospel 123and the Apocalypse as unworthy of the church (Epiph. hær: 51,
3) to Corinth, a cotemporary of John.101101According to 2: 27, Celsus suffers his
Jews to be told that Christians changed and corrupted the "Gospel" for polemic ends.
The very opponents of the book, therefore,
did not doubt about its age, nor bring it under suspicion; they always ascribed
it to the epoch in which John lived. Does not this show that the church had long
used that Gospel, and that on that account there was no opening for objections to
it on the ground of age? It is to be noticed at the same time that the same heretics
consider the Gospel and the Apocalypse as coherent productions, and that they acted
as one man in disowning John, and in claiming Corinth as the author. The authorship
of the Apocalypse, expressly stated by Justin to be the production of John, has
not been doubted even by the Tübingen critics to be the work of John. From the
acts of the anti-Montanists, however, it is to be inferred that the conviction and
usage of the church agreed in ascribing both writings, the Gospel and the Apocalypse,
to John. .

In this way, as the reader can perceive, even the heretics of the first
half of the second century 124and the beginning of the second half do good
service in helping us ascertain the truth regarding the antiquity of our Gospels.
We hold it impossible, without resorting to sophistry and falsification, to do away
with the testimony which these heretics bear to the credibility of our Gospels,
and especially to that of John.

We now advance a step beyond the church to the territory
where we encounter the armed opponents of Christianity, the men to whom the whole
preaching of the cross was folly and an offense. At that very time when the Gnostic
errorists were throwing the church into such confusion, it happened that one
of these opponents, Celsus by name, wrote a book full of mockery and scorn at Christianity.
This production perished long ago; but so far from doing any harm to Christianity,
it proved to be a great gain, for it impelled Origen to write his powerful and learned
defense of Christianity. From Origen's work we draw enough to make us certain that
in his attacks on the Christian faith Celsus made ample use of our Gospels, and
that he drew from them the materials 125which he needed in making his attacks. In what he says respecting
the appearance of angels at the resurrection of Jesus he probably refers to all
four of the Gospels; for he says that according to some there were two angels, according
to others, four at the grave (5, 56). Origen supposed that the first referred to
Luke and John, the last to Matthew and Mark. Proceeding in a different and more
definite way to work, he drew into the circle of his criticism various passages
from the synoptical Gospels, especially Matthew's, and also some from that of John.
Among those from the synoptical Gospels may be mentioned the account of the wise
men from the East (whom he calls Chaldeans), the story of the slaughter of the children
by Herod (1, 58), the flight into Egypt at the bidding of the angel (1, 66), the
appearance of the dove at the baptism (1, 40), the son of the Virgin (1, 40), the
direction which Jesus gives to his disciples (Matt. x. 23), "when they persecute
you in this city, flee ye into another " (1, 65), the grief at Gethsemane (2, 24),
the thirst on the cross (2, 37), the saying of Jesus that it 126is easier to go through the eye of a needle, etc.—which he supposes to be a motto of Plato in a changed form (6, 16),—the
command
of Jesus (Matt. v. 39; Luke vi. 29), "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also," which he also supposes to be a modified Platonism.
Examples of a reference to John are, his statement (1, 67) that the Jews in the
temple demanded a sign of Jesus (John ii. 18), that he accepts John's expression
"Logos" to designate Jesus as the Word of God (2, 31), that he ridicules (2, 36)
the statement that at the crucifixion blood issued from Jesus' side (John xix. 34),
and that he asserts (2, 59) that after his resurrection Jesus displayed his pierced
hands as the token of what he had endured (John xx. 27). It can not be claimed,
in view of this, that Celsus drew all these assertions from living Christian tradition;
for he himself is the very one to lay stress upon the fact that he drew upon the
writings of the Christians. His words were, as cited literally by Origen (2, 74),
from his own writings: "And this we have drawn from your own books; we want no
further 127evidence, and you are impaled on your own sword." Origen remarks
appositely that Celsus has indeed brought forward much that was not in the Gospels,
especially some blasphemous reports about Mary, and some idle stories about the
infancy of Christ; these may be found alluded to in the first book which Origen
wrote contra Celsum102102Mary, poor, living by the work of her own hands, is said to
have been driven away by her husband, a carpenter, in consequence of an adulterous
connection with a soldier named Panthera; and the story is that Jesus hired himself
in Egypt in consequence of his poverty, and learned secret arts there. (1, 28 and 32). But in the course of his work Celsus carried
out his idea103103See Origen 2: 13, where the Jew of Celsus says, "I might bring forward many
things which were written of Jesus, and which are strictly true, though differing
from the writings of the disciples; yet I will leave this on one side." of adhering closely to the "writings of the disciples of Jesus."
And plainly this was done out of respect to the fact that these writings, and these
alone, had authority in the church.

The question here arises, What relation to the
witness which Celsus bears to the authority of our Gospels is sustained by that
criticism which does not accept that authority, so far especially as John is concerned?
As that evidence can not be impugned, unbelieving scholars bring into use again
here that modernizing system which crops into view in Herakleon, to the perfect
shame of him who first made it current. As in Herakleon, so here, the story runs,
Celsus 128was the cotemporary of Origen. But when was that
important fact ascertained? Drawing from Origen himself, Dr. Volkmar104104See Der Ursprung unserer Evangelien, p. 80. says, "Has
not Origen declared at the close of his work (8, 76) that the same Celsus announced
that he would publish a work of more positive character, and that we must wait to
see whether he would accomplish the undertaking? Origen (254) may have written his
book against Celsus about the middle of the first half of the third century. Nothing
is plainer than that Celsus, if he were alive at that time and giving men to understand
that a new work might be expected from his pen, has no importance to us in helping
us settle this matter. But even here we have to deal with nothing but a piece of
wretched trickery, with real poverty of resources on the part of the critics whom
I complain of. For the statement borrowed from the close of the work against Celsus
rests upon gross ignorance or upon purposed deception. The words of Origen to his
patron Ambrosius, who had stimulated him to write the whole Apology, run after this
wise: "Know that Celsus promised 129[unquestionably in his book directed against Christianity, and opposed
by Origen] to write still another work in which" . . . . "If now he has not written this,
in spite of his promise105105Εἰ μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔγραψεν. it is enough for us to answer him with
these eight books.
But if he has done this, and completed106106Εἰ δὲ κἀκεῖνον ἀρξάμενος συνετέλεσε. his later work, do you hunt it up and
send it to me, that I may answer it," etc. The difficulty to account for is in
the words, "we must wait to see whether he would accomplish the undertaking." But
at the outset, in the very first book, Origen says, "I do not know of a single
Christian whose faith is in peril of being endangered by Celsus, a man no longer
among the living, but who has been a long time numbered among the dead." They forgot,
of course, to cut out this passage with the scissors which had been so effectually
applied to Polycarp. In that same first book Origen says, "We have learned that
there have been two men bearing the name of Celsus, the first under Nero, the second
[i. e. ours] under Hadrian and later." It is not impossible that Origen erred in
identifying his Celsus with the 130Epicurean who lived "under Hadrian and later;" but
it is impossible to make the Celsus of whom Origen thus speaks, his cotemporary.
Could Origen have made Celsus in his first book to be "under Hadrian and later"
(117 to 138), and in the eighth have said of the same man, " we must wait to see
[about 225] whether he will accomplish his undertaking? " So long therefore as we
get no more reliable information respecting Celsus, we must remain content with
believing that he wrote his work about the middle of the second century, perhaps
between 150 and 160;107107That there is an allusion to the Marcionites does not
do violence to this determination of the date; still, mention is made of the heresy
of Marcion as early as the first Apology of Justin. and that his testimony in favor of the synoptic and Johannean
Gospels dates from that period,—a fact of very great weight in enabling us to
determine the early existence of the evangelical canon.

With this result, however,
we by no means reach the limits of the history of Apologies for the Gospels. In
order to complete this department of our subject, we now enter upon a peculiar branch
of the literature of the same age with that with which we have been dealing,—a branch
which, after long neglect, is in our 131day claiming new and respectful attention; viz., the
New Testament apocryphal literature. This holds a certain position midway between
the literature of the church and that of the heresiarchs: at any rate. many of its
features served the ends of the former through the use of the latter. It is necessary,
however, that I should instruct the reader what the theologians understand by the
term "apocrypha." The apocryphal writings of the New Testament—for it is of these
only that I speak—are writings which aimed to take their place on the same footing
with the writings of the New Testament, but which were rejected by the church. They
bore on the face of them the names of apostles, or of other eminent men; but these
names have been misappropriated by unknown writers for the purpose of recommending
what they wrote. The Apocrypha were written, partly in order to develop in arbitrary
fashion what their authors had drawn from Scripture, partly to incorporate unauthenticated
accounts of the Saviour, Mary, Joseph, and the apostles, and partly to give point
and efficacy to heretical 132opinions directed against Holy Writ.
The church
was warranted, therefore, in excluding them from her accepted writings. It is true
that they have been revered as authentic by many from the earliest times; and on
this account they have a varied interest108108In 1851
appeared in the Hague a prize essay written by me in 1849: De evangelior. apocryph.
origine et usu. I hope to publish a revised edition of it for the use of learned
readers. to readers. I have indicated elsewhere
in what sense I propose to use them: they only support and strengthen our evidence
of the very early origin of our Gospels. We are, of course, independent of the question
how old the apocrypha are; and this has left an opening into which opponents have
pressed, hoping to cut us off on this side. But we have come to the result that
the two portions of the apocryphal Gospels which are extant now, known as the Protevangel
of James and the Acts of Pilate, must have been written within the three first
decades of the second century, and that the main substance of those works (though
marred by many changes in the text) is now in our possession.

The chief, if not
the only, evidence for the age of both of these writings is found in Justin. And
first with regard to the Protevangel of 133James. In Justin's Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon, and
in his first Apology, we find in the statements respecting the birth of Jesus and
the annunciation traces of a knowledge, and of the influence, of the book of James.
Justin relates in the Dialogue (cap. 78) that the birth of Jesus occurred in a cavern
near the village, there being no room at the inn. This statement, which confirms
the account of Luke instead of contradicting it, is contained in the book of James,
and is woven into the substance of the whole history of the event. Still, it is
not to be overlooked that Justin appropriates only this single fragment respecting
the birth in the cave, and in the rest follows Luke rather than the pseudo-James.
The statement respecting the want of room in Bethlehem coheres strictly with the
narrative of Luke, but is not in accord with that of the. pseudo-James. Similarly,
the annunciation is plainly hinted in the first Apology, although with a free following
of Luke, with the mere difference that the words, "For he shall save his people
from their sins," are connected with 134the words directed to Mary, "And thou shalt call
his name Jesus." In Luke they are wanting altogether, and in Matthew they belong
to the message announced to Joseph. And have we not a recognition of what is apocryphal
in Justin, since, at the close of his exposition, he appeals to those who have
declared everything respecting our Saviour Jesus Christ? But no, that can not be
said; for the whole account of Justin, as already remarked, corresponds strictly
to Luke, and not to the Protevangel, only with this difference, that the passage
indicated varies from the Protevangel, Matthew giving the words as announced to
Joseph, and Justin as addressed to Mary. This feature must, in my opinion, be ascribed
to the perusal of the Protevangel; and in the recollection of Justin it connected
itself with Luke's account without his own consciousness of the fact. It is unmistakable
that the whole quotation was made from memory.109109Those who care to go further into this matter I must
beg to see in the original Greek how the passage runs in Justin, in Luke (i. 30
et sq.), and in the Protevangel (see my elaborately annotated Evang. Apocr. 1853,
p. 21 et sq. Protevang. chap. xi.). In the Dialogue (chap. 100), the
annunciation made to Mary is cited, and the words spring from Luke, and not from
the Protevangel.110110Justin has it: The Spirit
of the Lord shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee;
therefore that which shall be born of thee is holy, the Son of God. Luke says: The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The pseudo-James has
it thus: For the power of the Lord shall overshadow thee; therefore shall the holy
thing which is born of thee be called the Son of the Highest. At the same time, there is 135a single extract bearing relation to the mental state of Mary,
which seems to have sprung from a recollection of a passage in the Protevangel;
only Justin has connected it with the reply of Mary to the address of the angel,
while the Protevangel joins it to a priestly blessing which she received just on
the point of setting out to visit Elizabeth.111111In Justin it runs:
Πίστιν δὲ καὶ χαρὰν λαβοῦσα . . . ἀπεκρίνατο. In the pseudo-James:
Χαρὰν δε λαβοῦσα Μαριὰμ ἀπίει πρὸς Ἐλισάβετ.

But is there no objection urged
against our endeavor to substantiate an acquaintance of Justin with the Protevangel?
Certainly there are lost writings which are brought into requisition. Out of one
of these it is supposed that Justin can just as well have drawn as that the Protevangel
be derived from it. The Gnostic γέννα Μαριας (de
generatione Mariæ), and still
more the Gospel of Peter,112112See Hilgenfeld:
Kritische Untersuchungen über die Evangelien Justins, p. 159 et sq. have been thought to be that ancient work freshly brought
to light. And this brings us into renewed contact with an old acquaintance, with
that same faculty of making new discoveries of which I have already had occasion
to speak. In order to escape the force of a work lying plainly before our eyes,
the inferences from which are unmistakable, 136it is held in the light of a copy of
a perished work, of which we have received from the past little but the title and
a few meager extracts, which render it impossible to set solid facts over against
the play of fancy. Yet let us look into this matter as closely as we can. Epiphanius113113See Epiph. hæres. xxvi. 12.
has given the first impulse toward bringing the Gnostic production already mentioned
into relation with the Protevangel, in citing something of what he calls the "shocking"
statements of the work; namely, that there appeared to Zacharias in the temple the
vision of a man wearing the form of an ass. Upon which Zacharias went up to him
and tried to say, Woe to you! whom are you worshiping? but could not utter the words,
the man seen in the vision having struck him dumb. But when his mouth was opened,
and he had communicated to others what he had seen, ho was instantly put to death.
This fragment from the lost book is enough, I should think, to identify its source.
And is there that in it which enables us to determine that it was the basis of the
Protevangel? The last has nothing 137in common with the first, excepting the slaughter of
Zacharias, but wholly on another ground, and under altogether different conditions.
But there is help at hand against accumulating difficulties respecting the connection
of both writings. The way is to conjure up and thrust into prominence a work which
claims to have given rise to that of James. From the Gnostic book relating to Mary
sprang this Gnostic-tinged—now unfortunately lost—primitive foundation of the pseudo-James;
and from this again the work of our catholicizing James.114114Would one accept a closer
relation between the Protevangelium and the Gnostic book of Mary, there would be
a certain probability in giving the heretical Gnostic production such a dependence
upon the half-Catholic book of James as is manifested in the many instances of extra-ecclesiastical
literature depending upon that of the church. The hints given by Augustine in the
twenty-third book against Faustus would also have weight in this regard, while those
too of the Gnostic work called De generatione Mariæ have similar value. Mary was
represented in this as a daughter of a priest Joachim of the tribe of Levi. This ingenious solution
may not have quite satisfied even him who hit upon it, and hence he thought out
and gave preference to another combination. In the passage where Origen alludes
to the work of James, he mentions the Gospel of Peter; for he says the brothers
of Jesus were regarded by some, who followed the tradition of the Gospel of Peter,
or that of James's work, as if they had been the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage.115115See Orig. opp. ed. Delarue, iii. 463 (comm. in Matt. tom. x. 17).
Now, according to this new combination, the question is asked, Can not the Gospel
of Peter, 138or the early history given in it, be the basis of
the Protevangel? The primitive history in the Gospel of Peter rests exclusively
upon the passage of Origen relating to the brothers of Jesus as the sons of Joseph
by an earlier marriage. With reference to this, we read without going further. That
there was such a primitive history, can, according to the statement of Origen, be
regarded as beyond doubt. From the same passage of Origen, the conclusion is drawn
that "in the Protevangel of James the primitive history of the Gospel of Peter
is contained." But do the words of Origen, "while they followed the tradition of
the Gospel of Peter, or that of the work of James," warrant the inference in the
least that the latter coincides and gives support to the primitive history of the
Gospel of Peter? But who is able to impose a check upon the unbridled fanaticism
of theorists?116116For a full characterization of this matter, the passage from Hilgenfeld may have
so much appositeness as to admit of its being quoted. "It is certainly true that
the present form of the Protevangel, while alluding to John and his parents without
describing his birth more closely, is incomplete, and indicates more than it tells;
but since the Gnostics in their Γέννα Μαρίας gave an account of the dumbness which
came upon Zacharias, the suspicion is not risked that the primitive draft of the
Gospel contained an account of those antecedent events. The suspicion may not be
ventured; it is entirely without support. For the story of Zacharias's dumbness
stands in the Gnostic production completely isolated; it has not the slightest analogy
either with Luke or with the Protevangel. If the latter points to something beyond
itself, it is at any rate clear that our canonical Gospels, including that of Luke,
stand in the background. On the other hand, there is a close connection established
with the Gnostic primitive form of the Protogospel: "the same is manifestly received
only in a revision, worked over after the canonical Gospels mainly, causing it thereby
to lose, as it would seem, many of its peculiarities."
But may not then the Book of James have a like close connection with the canonical
Gospels, taking into account the agreement with them of its whole nature and purport?
Further on, we read: "The admission that Justin made use of such an ancient Protevangel
may be allowed if it be held as probable that such a production, bearing among the
Gnostics the title Γέννα Μαρίας, contained a genealogy of Mary." After further
remarks there follows: "All the more attractive therefore is another trace to which
Origen leads us. In the passage where he alludes to the Gospel of Peter and the Protogospel of James, he speaks of them both
as bearing the same testimony. But
how would this be if both Gospels should prove to be closely related? How if in
the Protogospel of James the preliminary history of Peter's Gospel—for there can
scarcely be a doubt that there was such a preliminary history—were accepted? Is
not this more than building on the sand?" That we are now in possession of nearly fifty Greek manuscripts,
comprising, among other things, a Syrian copy of the work under discussion, dating
from the sixth century, and that no one of the evidences of its antiquity, from 139Origen down, is contradictory to the text of these manuscripts,
gives us assuredly a good right to hold fast to the conviction that this was the
writing so familiar to the ancients,117117The first reference
to Justin appears, as Hilgenfeld was the first to remark, in the document addressed
to the congregations at Lyons and Vienna about the year 177. Allusion is made there
(Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 1: 3, et sq.) to the martyrdom of Zacharias. Tertullian in
the Scorpiacum contr. Gnosticos, chap. 8, refers to the same thing, only with more
definite and positive language. Clemens Alexandr. alludes to the circumstances connected with
the midwives. Strom. vii. page 889 in Potter. Origen is the first who mentions the
work as the book of James. and so much used by them. Is not that the
most untenable of hypotheses, that our work was derived from one which was used
by the ancients where it coincides with our own, but of which not a trace remains?
And what other end does this hypothesis subserve than this, to set aside the inferences
which are drawn from the book of James, and applied not only to the Christian literature
of the second century, but more especially to the history of the Gospel cause? I
trust it will not impel those who do riot share these views, to regard hypotheses
which have such a basis to rest upon as something else than they really are. In
opposition to them, I am still justified in insisting that the undeniable connection
between Justin and several passages of the so-called Proto-Gospel presupposes his
acquaintance with this very production. The book of James stands, in its whole tendency,
in such a relation to our 140canonical Gospels, that the latter must have been
diffused a long time, and must have been accepted a long time before the former
was discovered. The allusions of Matthew and Luke to the virgin mother of the Lord
were unable to prevent the belief in a real son of Joseph and Mary,—an idea consonant
with the taste of the Judaized Christian heresiarchs: the mention of the brothers
of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels appeared to bear evidence against Matthew and Luke;
learned Jews brought against the Christians the charge of arbitrarily changing
the meaning of Isaiah, and making him support the notion of a virgin mother: Jewish
hostility even went so far as to assert that Jesus was the illegitimate son of one
Panthera, and heathen skeptics quoted Greek fables about sons being born from virgins,
in order to discredit the evangelical account. In such a time as was the first half
of the second century, nothing could promise a better support to the Gospel narrative
than a production like the one named after James, furnished with irrefragable historic
testimony as to the lofty destiny of 141Mary from her birth, as to her motherhood while a virgin,
and as to a relationship of Mary to Joseph exalted far above the usual relations
of marriage.118118We pass over the story of the death
of Zacharias in the Protevangel to Matt. xxiii. 36. If this can be so understood
as if affording an historical basis for the passage in Matthew, it would strengthen
the proof of the antiquity of the Gospels which we derive from the document of James.
Now, if this work of James falls within the first three decades of
the second century, the composition of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, to which
the reference of James's work limits itself, can not be set later than the last
decades of the previous century.

It is the same with the second apocryphal work
brought under review above, the so-called Acts of Pilate, only with the difference
that they refer as much to John as to the synoptical Gospels. Justin, in like manner
as before, is the most ancient voucher for this work, which is said to have been
written under Pilate's jurisdiction, and, by reason of its specification of wonderful
occurrences before, during, and after the crucifixion, to have borne strong evidence
to the divinity of Christ. Justin saw as little reason as Tertullian and others
for believing that it was a work of pious deception from a Christian hand. On the
contrary, Justin appeals twice to it in his first Apology in order 142to confirm the accounts of the occurrences which
took place at the crucifixion in accordance with prophecy, and of the miraculous
healings effected by Christ, also the subject of prophetic announcement. He cites
specifically (chap. 35) from Isaiah lxv. 2, and lviii. 2: "I have spread out my
hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not
good." . . . "They ask of me the ordinances of justice: they take delight in approaching
to God. Further, from the twenty-second Psalm: "They pierced my hands and my feet. . . .
They parted my garments upon them, and cast lots upon my vesture." With reference
to this, he remarks that Christ fulfilled this; that he did stretch forth his hands
when the Jews crucified him,—the men who contended against him, and denied that
he was the Christ. "Then," he says further, "as the prophet foretold, they dragged
him to the judgment-seat, set him upon it, and said, 'Judge us.' The expression,
however, 'they pierced,' etc., refers to the nails with which they fastened his
hands and his feet to the cross. And after they 143had crucified him they threw lots for his clothing, and
they who had taken part in the act of crucifixion divided it among themselves."
To this he adds: "And you can learn from the Acts, composed119119A third reference must be accepted in the thirty-eighth chapter,
where he in like manner cites Is. lxv. 2, and 1. 6: "I gave my back to the smiters
and exposed my cheeks to blows:" see also the words already cited of the xxii. Psalm,
"They cast lots," etc., in conjunction with Psalm iii. 5, "I laid me down and slept;
I awaked," etc., and Ps. xxii. 8. He makes this close to the prophecies: "and this
was all done by the Jews to Christ, as you can learn" (here we have this express
declaration) "from the Acts compiled under Pontius Pilate." during the governorship
of Pontius Pilate, that these things really happened." Still more explicit is the
testimony of Tertullian. It may be found in the Apologeticus (chap. 2), where he
says that out of envy Jesus was surrendered to Pilate by the Jewish ceremonial lawyers,
and by him, after he had yielded to the cries of the people, given over for crucifixion;
that while hanging on the cross he gave up the ghost with a loud cry, and so anticipated
the executioner's duty; that at that same hour the day was interrupted by a sudden
darkness; that a guard of soldiers was set at the grave for the purpose of preventing
his disciples stealing his body, since he ad predicted his resurrection, but that
on the third day the ground was suddenly shaken, and the stone rolled away from
before the sepulcher; that in the grave nothing was found but the articles used
in his burial; that the report was 144spread abroad by those who stood outside, that the
disciples had taken the body away; that Jesus spent forty days with them in Galilee,
teaching them what their mission should be, and that, after giving them their instructions
as to what they should preach, he was raised in a cloud to heaven. Tertullian closes
this account with the words, All this was reported to the emperor at that time,
Tiberius, by Pilate, his conscience having compelled even him to become a Christian."

The document now in our possession corresponds with this evidence of Justin and
Tertullian. Even in the title it agrees with the account of Justin, although, instead
of the word acta, which he used, and which is manifestly much more Latin than Greek,
a Greek expression is employed, which can be shown to have been used to indicate
genuine Acts.120120Instead
of ἄκτα we have the specific word ὑπομνήματα. The same title, prepared too for
the official report of Pilate, appears in the Præsidial Acts relative to the martyrs
Tarachus, Probus and Andronikus. See my Evv. apocr.
p. lxii. In the same sense it is used in a homily inscribed to Chrysostom (Chrys.
opp. tom. v. p. 942) and in the Martyrium Ignatii, chap. iii. But with this we
must reconcile the expression ὑπομνηματικαὶ ἐφημερὶδες, which Philo uses (de legat.
ad Cajum 25) in reference to the reports which were sent by Alexander to the emperor
of Rome. The oldest Latin title, found in Gregory of Tours, is the Gesta Pilati.
The details recounted by Justin and Tertullian are all found in
our text of the Acts of Pilate, with this variation, that nothing corresponds to
what is joined to the declaration of the prophet, "They dragged him to the seat
of judgment, 145and set him upon it, and said," etc.: besides this, the
casting lots for the vesture is expressed simply by the allusion to the division
of the clothes. We must give even closer scrutiny to one point. Justin alludes to
the miracles which were performed in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, on the
lame, the dumb, the blind, the dead, and on lepers. In fact, in our Acts of Pilate
there are made to appear before the Roman governor a palsied man who had suffered
for thirty-eight years, and was brought ill a bed by young men, and healed on the Sabbath day;121121The thirty-eight years and the healing on the Sabbath are taken
from John's narrative, v. 2; that about the man who was carried by, from Matthew
ix. a blind man cured by the laying on of hands; a cripple who had been
restored; a leper who had been cleansed; the woman whose issue of blood had been
stanched; and a witness of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Of that which Tertullian
cites, we will adduce merely the passage found in no one of our Gospels, that Jesus
passed forty days after his resurrection in company with his disciples in
Galilee. This is indicated in our Acts of Pilate, at the end of the fifteenth chapter, where
the risen man is represented as saying to Joseph, 146"For forty days go not out of thy house;
for behold, I go to my brethren in Galilee."

Every one will perceive how strongly
the argument that our Acts of Pilate are the same which Justin and Tertullian read
is buttressed by these unexpected coincidences. The assertion recently made122122&gt;See Weitzel: Die christliche Passahfeier der drei ersten
Jahrhunderte, p. 248 et sq.
requires consequently no labored contradiction that the allusions to both men
have grown out of their mere suspicion that there was such a record as the Acts
of Pilate, or out of the circulation of a mere story about such a record, while
the real work was written as the consequence of these allusions at the close of
the third century. What an uncommon fancy it requires in the two men to coincide
so perfectly in a single production as is the case in the Acts to which I am now
referring! And
are we to imagine that they referred with such emphasis as they employed to the
mere creations of their fancy?

The question has been raised with more justice,
whether the production in our possession may not have been a copy or free revision
of the old and primitive one. The modern change 147in the title has given support to this conjecture, for it
has occasioned the work to be commonly spoken of as the Gospel of Nicodemus. But
this title is borne neither by any Greek manuscript, the Coptic-Sahidian papyrus,
nor the Latin manuscripts, with the exception of a few of the most recent.123123&gt;On scientific grounds it is not
to be excused if one in learned investigations follows in the old rut and speaks
of the Gospel of Nicodemus. Compare my re-establishing of the old title and the
investigation respecting it in the Prolegomenon of the Evangelia apocrypha, p.
liv. et sq. It corresponds best with what was said above respecting the use of the
word ὑπομνήματα, if we say the "Acts of Pilate." The Latin designation, Gesta Pilati,
also answers well to this. It
may be traced only subsequently to the twelfth century, although at a very early
period, in one of the two prefaces attached to the work, Nicodemus is mentioned
in one place as a Hebrew author, and in another as a Greek translator. But aside
from the title, the handwriting displays great variation, and the two prefaces alluded
to above show clearly the work of two hands. Notwithstanding this, however, there
are decisive grounds for holding that our Acts of Pilate contain in its main substance
the document drawn from Justin. and Tertullian. The first of this to be noticed
is, that the Greek text, as given in the version most widely circulated in the manuscripts,
is surprisingly corroborated by two documents of the rarest character, and first
used by myself,—a Coptic-Sahidian papyrus 148manuscript, and a Latin palimpsest,—both probably
dating from the fifth century. Such a documentary confirmation of their text is
possessed by scarcely ten works of the collective Greek classic literature. Both
of these ancient writings make it in the highest degree probable that the Egyptian
and Latin translations which they contain were executed still earlier. But could
a work which was held in great consideration in Justin's and Tertullian's time,
and down to the commencement of the fourth century, and which strenuously124124&gt;See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. ix. 5 and 7. insists
that the Emperor Maximin caused other blasphemous Acts of Pilate to be published
and zealously circulated, manifestly for the purpose of displacing and discrediting
the older Christian Acts,—could such a work suddenly change its whole form, and
from the fifth century, to which in so extraordinary a manner translators wholly
different in character point back with such wonderful concurrence, continue in the
new form? Contrary as this is to all historical criticism, there is in the contents
of the work, in the singular manner in which isolated and independent 149details125125Comp. with reference to this my paper: Pilati circa Christum indicio quid lucis
afferatur ex actis Pilati. Lipsiæ, 1855. are shown to be related to the canonical books,
no less than in the accordance with the earliest quotations found in Justin and
Tertullian,126126Of later writers Epiphanius
admits (hæres. L. Quartodec. i.) that appeal was made to the Acts of Pilate in order
to establish the time of Jesus' death, it being given there as the twenty-fifth
of March. He adds, however, that he had found copies where the eighteenth was assigned
as the date. The first date is found also in our texts. a guaranty of the greatest antiquity. There are in the contents, also,
matters of such a nature that we must confess that they are to be traced back to
the primitive edition; as, for example, the narrative in the first chapter of the
bringing forward of the accused. But the whole character of the work in our possession.
does not deny in toto that which we must infer from the statements of Justin and
Tertullian. It is incorrect, moreover, to draw a conclusion from Justin's designation
of the Acta which is not warranted by the whole character of the work. The Acta,
the ὑπομνήματα, are specified in Justin's account, not less than in the manuscripts
which we possess, as being written under Pontius Pilate; and that can signify nothing
else than that they were an official production, composed under the direct sanction
of the Roman Governor. Their transmission to the Emperor must be imagined as accompanied
by a letter of the same character with 150that which has been brought down to us in the Greek
and Latin edition,127127See the
two ἀναφοραὶ Πιλάτου in our Evv. apocr. pp. 413-425. and yet not at all similar in purport to the notable Acts
of Pilate. It is by no means necessary for us to assert that the production in our
hands has (with the exception of the preface already alluded to) remained free from
interpolations; for the distinguishing characteristic which it bears is the weaving
in of much from the synoptic Gospels, and still more from John, relative to the
last sufferings of Jesus.128128It will
gratify the wish of the reader if I insert here a portion of the text of the work
itself. We select for this purpose the whole of the third chapter, tinged as it
is with the coloring of John: "And full of rage Pilate came forth from the hall
of judgment (the Prætorium) and said to them, 'I take the sun to witness that I
find no fault in this man.' But the Jews answered and said to the governor, 'If
this man had not been a malefactor, we should not have delivered him over to you.'
Pilate answered, 'Take him away and judge him after your law.' The Jews
answered, 'It is not permitted to us to put ally one to death.' Pilate said, 'Did
God order you not to put any one to death and not me as well?' Pilate went again
into the judgment hall and called Jesus to him privately, and asked him, 'Art thou
the king of the Jews?' Jesus answered him, 'Speakest thou that of thyself, or have
others told it thee?' Pilate answered Jesus, 'Am I a Jew? Thy people and the high
priest have delivered thee over to me: what hast thou done?' Jesus answered, 'My
kingdom is not of this world; for if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants have fought that I should not be delivered over to the Jews: but now is
my kingdom not thence.' Then spoke Pilate unto unto him, 'Thou art a king, then.'
Jesus answered him, 'Thou sayest that I am a king. For this cause was I born and
am come into the world, that every one who is out of the truth may hear my voice.'
Pilate asked, 'What is truth?' Jesus answered, 'The truth is from heaven.' Pilate
asked again, 'Is there no truth on the earth?' Jesus answered, 'Thou seest how those
who speak the truth are brought to judgment of those who have power on the earth."'
At the close of the fourth chapter we have: "But when Pilate saw the throng of Jews
around him he perceived that many of the Jews were weeping, and said, 'Not all
the people wish him to die.' Then answered the elders, 'We, the whole people, have come, that he might be sentenced
to death.' Pilate answers them, 'Wherefore should he die?' The Jews reply,' Because
he said he was God's son and a king.'" Is it not stated in Justin that the Acts of Pilate
reveal the fulfillment of the prophecy respecting the resurrection from the dead,
as it is given in chapter eight of the work in our hands, in the testimony concerning
the raising of Lazarus? Is it probable that, in order to set John aside, we are
to believe that in Justin's edition there was recorded one of the two other resurrections,
of which we have traces preserved for us?

It would lead us to the denial of an unquestionable
fact should we not admit the claims of our Acts of Pilate, in their connection with
the work of the same name known to Justin, to 151serve as testimony to the authority of the Johannean
as well as the synoptic Gospels, dating from a period prior to Justin, in spite
of their frequent use of those Gospels. What importance this fact has in enabling
us to determine the age of our Gospels, and especially that of John, is at once
apparent; it weighs far more than any verbal extracts made from John in the epoch
of Justin. If the apocryphal Acts of Pilate must, for the reason that Justin cites
them in his first Apology to the Roman Emperor, be ascribed to the first decades
of the second century, they show, by their use of and dependence upon the Gospel
of John, that the latter dates from a period even earlier. This theory throws no
light into the impenetrable darkness, but, among the many beams which come down
from the period directly after the age of the apostles, and which illumine the most
important question of Christianity, this is one of the most luminous.

We might also
cite Thomas's Gospel of the Infancy for our purpose. Irenæus and Hippolytus129129Compare respecting this
my Evangelia Apocrypha in the Prolegg. i. p. xxxix. et sq. both
show that it was used by the Marcosians 152and the Naasenians; it was therefore unquestionably
one of the first results of the productive heresy of that age, and must be ascribed
to the middle of the second century. Its text we possess only in fragments, which
are at issue130130See
the same work. often among themselves, and which consequently makes it difficult
to ascertain the connection of scattered passages with those of the Gospels. The
work seems, however, to bear witness in one respect to the results of my researches,
and not in the not unimportant fact that at the time when this book appeared, in
the middle of the second century, the Gospel canon ordinarily accepted was already
formed, and the story of the years of Jesus' childhood filled up a break in the
account of his life. This left a district open to historical research, and one which
heresy knew well how to prize. Besides this there confronts us one fact more, which
admits of application to the three more or less perfectly personal evidences of
the Christian Apocraphy. The wide divergence found in these, in respect to form
as well as substance, to language as well as spirit, to delineation as well 153as conception, bears witness
to a sacred origin
of our canonical Gospels, to which the apocryphal writings are related as the last
subjoined appendices.

I might allude here in a single word to the pseudo-Clementine
literature, whose main work, the Homilies, is certainly to be ascribed to the middle
of the second century. The establishment of this date does not lead to the necessity
of drawing any such inferences respecting the history of the canon as we drew in
the case of the book of James and the Acts of Pilate. Still it is very instructive
that the transition of the Gospel of John into this Judaic-Christian tendency record,131131Comp. Hilgenfeld: Kritische Untersuchungen
über
die Evv. Justins, der Clementinischen Homilien und Marcions, 1850 (therefore before
1853), p. 387 et sq. Here an effort is ascribed to the fourth Evangelist to subordinate
Peter to the beloved disciple, and on this account the fourth Evangelist's independence
of Peter's Gospel is admitted, but afterwards every proof favoring the use of the
Gospel of John is denied to the connection of the homilies with him. (Page 346 had
thus decided with respect to the expression, Horn. 3: 52, "My sheep hear my voice":
"It is a question whether the Gospel of John or one still older contained this passage.")
"Against such a use," it goes on literally to say, "stands the glaring difference
in the tendency of both writers, so that in presupposing an acquaintance with this
Gospel one must admit a polemic objective view. Let one imagine an attack made upon the divinity of Christ, and
satisfy himself how such an author could dispose of John i. 1;
x. 33, et sq.; xx.
28. While, in John x. 36, Jesus declares himself substantially as the Son of God,
so that his own assertion is an expression of his divinity, the author of the Homilies
takes the same expression, 16:15, to be a decisive statement of the difference between
Jesus and the Deity. The Lord never declared himself to be God, but the Son of God.
How was it possible, after using the fourth Gospel, to expressly limit the time
of the intercourse of Jesus and the disciples to a single year, and not, as later
teachers have accepted, the time of his public career? How could he besides, while
declaring Peter to be the first fruits and cherished disciple of Christ, so markedly
leave out the Johannean portraiture, and among the expressions used by Jesus regarding
the devil (xix. 2), which he doubtless collects as completely as was possible, how
could he omit such an expression as John viii. 44? The result of our investigation
is in a word this, that even in Clementine's Homilies the Gospel of Peter, in contradistinction
to Justin and some farther continuations, is used; with him Matthew, perhaps Luke
also, but certainly not the Gospel of John."
which was not at all disputed till the year 1853, has been shown to be utterly untenable
by the discovery by Dressel, at Rome, of the concluding portions of it where (xix.
22) John's narrative of the man who was born blind is made use of beyond all doubt.

The elucidation already given respecting the Acts of Pilate and the book of James
had already brought us to the opening first decades of the second century, and compelled
us to confess 154that there was 1inquestionably use made, at that
period, of our Gospels. No one of the remaining results of our investigations into
the ecclesiastical and heretical literature of the second century stood in antagonism
with this fact. Not only the apocryphal writings already named bring us back to
that epoch, but a work of great repute in the Christian literature, one which from
even the close of the second century to the opening of the fourth was assigned by
such men as Clemens Alexandrinus132132With the utmost
probability Celsus made use (about 150) of the epistle of Barnabas. That he specifically
speaks of the apostles as πονηρότατοι, Origen infers (contr. Cels. i. 63) from the
use of the epistle. to Holy Writ. It forms a part of the so-called
apostolical Fathers, regarding which we have already spoken in our discussion of
the epistles of Ignatius and that of Polycarp. If it really bore rightly the name
of Barnabas, the companion of Paul, it would, in spite of certain unsatisfactory
details, be correctly entitled to a place among the sacred books of the New Testament.
Slight as is the ecclesiastical or scientific recognition granted to this claim
of authorship, yet the assertion is made with confidence, that the epistle beating
the name of Barnabas is one of the earliest written records which have 155come down to us from the epoch directly subsequent to the
life of the apostles. If the expressions (in the sixteenth chapter) conjoined with
the word of prophecy regarding the rebuilding of the City and the Temple are in
accordance with historical fact, we are brought back from the conflicting statements
respecting the closing decades of the first century and the opening decades of the
second, to the first year of Hadrian's reign. In its aim and general character the
epistle bears the closest resemblance, among the books of the New Testament, to
the Epistle to the Hebrews; it is directed against such Christian converts from
Judaism, who, while accepting the new covenant, sought to cling to the old, and
hence felt that they must share with the former fellow-believers in the grief over
the fall of the Jewish Temple. In opposition to them, the epistle, basing itself
largely upon Old Testament prophecy and authority, arrays the proof that the new
covenant brought in by Christ had completely done away with the older one, and that
the latter had merely been, with its temple and whole service, 156an incomplete and temporary type of the new covenant.

Within the last two centuries scholars have busied themselves much with this document,
but unfortunately there are lacking in all the Greek manuscripts of it, the first
five chapters; only an old Latin translation, greatly incomplete,133133The text however is not to be judged from
what is published, nor is that of Dr. Hilgenfeld, who has contented himself with
unscientifically repeating it just as it was left in the edition of two hundred
years ago. supplies the
deficiency. And exactly in those chapters which are found only in the Latin copy
is there a passage which has excited great curiosity. "Let us be on our guard,"
thus it reads in the fourth chapter, " that we be not be found to be, as it is written,
many called but few chosen." "Adtendamus ergo ne forte, sicut scriptum est, multi
vocati, pauci electi inveniamur." The expression, "as it is written," will be readily
recognized by the reader as a familiar one in the New Testament. It is the phrase
which always designates the difference between all passages of Holy Writ and all
others, and was invariably used by the apostles, as well as by the Saviour, in citing
the Old Testament. If it were ever applied to a passage outside of the canon, it
only followed that 157the passage in question had been drawn by frequent use
into the circle of canonical writings, just as, for example, Jude cites from the
prophet Enoch. It could be publicly transferred to the writings of the apostles,
when the latter were placed on the same basis with the Old Testament. As soon as
passages of the Gospels were cited in connection with the phrase, "as it is written,"
it was assumed that they had become canonical. We had occasion on a former page
to allude to this matter, while referring to Justin's arranging the Gospels and
the Prophecies side by side, and to the epistles of Ignatius; the same formula was
also encountered in the New Testament quotations of the Naasenians. The words which
have been cited in the Epistle of Barnabas in connection with the same formula are
in the Gospel of Matthew, xxii. 14, and xx. 16. If our inference is correct, at
the time when the Epistle of Barnabas was written, this Gospel was regarded as canonical.

But the Epistle of Barnabas extends back to the highest Christian antiquity. And
is it possible, 158some ask, that at so remote a period the
passage from Matthew should be marked by the characteristics of canonization? The
doubt conveyed in this question has been materially strengthened by the circumstance
that the passage has hitherto existed only in a Latin form. It was possible to
say, therefore, that this significant phrase was added by a translator living long
subsequently. Dr. Credner, in 1832, wrote these literal words: "The form of citation,
sicut Scriptum est, applied to a book of the New Testament, was wholly without usage
in that time, and not an instance of it can be found." The portion of the Epistle
of Barnabas which, contains the passage under discussion does not exist at present
in the original Greek, but only in a Latin translation. It was an easy matter, therefore,
for the translator to subjoin the current formula of quotation; and from internal
evidence we must accordingly lay claim to the correctness of the text in the passage
under consideration, till some one shall show satisfactory proof to the contrary.
In order to decide the question respecting the antiquity 159of the formula, it was necessary to consult the
original Greek text. It was destined not to be withheld from the Christian world.
After lying many hundreds of years among the old parchments at the Convent of St.
Catherine in the wilderness of Sinai, it came to light in a happy hour; for with
the Sinaitic Bible, the whole of the Epistle of Barnabas was discovered in the original
Greek. And what is the decision which it gives respecting the subject under discussion?
It decides that the writer of the epistle himself placed the important Christian-classic
expression, "as it is written," before the quotation from Matthew, and that it
was not the work of the translator.

After this important fact was established, a
new question arose, namely, whether important inferences could be drawn unconditionally
from this phrase. Could not the formula, "as it is written," be accepted as referring
to any book? How little ground there is for this I have already shown in my explanations
of the use to be made of this formula; and we have no right to weaken its force
in the present instance. 160But are we also compelled to recognize its relation
to the passage from Matthew? What would be more evident, if we are to escape the
assaults of unsound and partisan criticism? A writer of this class has brought forward
a notion which once brought down the scorn of Credner134134See Beiträge i. a. 1.: "These words do not suit if
they be made with Orelli (Selecta pp. eccl. capita, etc.) to refer to the apocryphal
fourth book of Ezra which Barnabas elsewhere cites." One would draw the inference
from this which Volkmar insists should be deduced from Credner's words, quite in
antagonism to what Credner himself asserts. upon it, namely, that
the quotation of Barnabas's Epistle is to be referred to the fourth book of Ezra,
quoted elsewhere in the Epistle.135135See Volkmar: Index
lectt. in liter. univ. Turic. 1864, page 16. Scriptum est apud Esdram Prophetam
iv. Esd. viii. 3: "multi creati, pauci autem salvati." Hoc auctor confudit cum dicto
Christi apud Matth. xix. 30, (?) Christiano illo interpretamento dicti Esdrani.
Quod ed. mea Esdræ Prophetæ, 1863, p. 290, post J. C. de Orelli et C. A. Crednerum
(how do the words of Credner himself, cited in the previous note, agree with this?)
quorum meritum plerisque in memoriam revocandum erat, demonstravit, omnibus qui
hucusque de ea re ex ed. nea iudicarunt, persuasit. . . . There, in the eighth chapter, it is expressly
stated according to the Latin and Ethiopian text, "nam multi creati sunt (in the
Ethiop., besides, in eo, i. e. mundo) pauci autem salvabuntur,"—for many have
been born, but few shall be saved. In spite of the applause which this136136See D. F. Strauss, Das Leben
Jesu, p. 55. has received
in a certain quarter, it only shows to what wanton fancies the opposition brought
against the age of our evangelical canon leads men. The visible absurdity of referring
a citation, taken word for word from Matthew, to a passage in a book of Ezra, written
twenty years earlier137137Volkmar (Der Ursprung unserer Evv. p. 161) assigns
the date of this work to "97, harvest time." and having quite a different meaning, is carried so far
that the expression of the Saviour in Matthew is degraded into a 161mere "Christian interpretation" of the passage in Ezra.138138The statement given
above of the heathen scoffer Celsus merits unquestionable pre-eminence over this
discovery; for according to him the expression, "It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,"
is but another form of Plato's "It is impossible that he who is extraordinarily
rich should be extraordinarily good." See Origen contr. Cels. 6: 16. As for other
matters, however, the crafty trickery of Volkmar does not derive any reflected credit
from Renan, as it was said to do in the earlier editions of this work; it should
have the claim allowed it of having anticipated Renan, since the latter work appeared
in 1863, whereas Volkmar's preface to "Esdra Propheta" is dated October, 1862. Honor
to whom honor is due.
That Matthew is referred to elsewhere in the Epistle is supposed not to have its
weight in strengthening the citation from him accompanied by the canonical formula,
but to prove, on the contrary, that Barnabas, with all Iis acquaintance with Matthew,
did not hold his work to be a sacred book.139139So Volkmar i. a. 1. p. 161. "118-119 Alexandrine
epistle named after Barnabas, with a knowledge of the Gospel of Matt. as a new
work with the most ample use of Matthew, but with the sayings of Christ taken only from the hallowed Old Testament."
It is forgotten that quite often
we meet in the later Fathers, in connection with direct and express quotations,
the same weaving in of a biblical clause that we have in Barnabas; and in these
cases the reader is pre-supposed to have that familiarity with Scripture which will
enable him to determine what it is which is thus woven in, without its being definitely
pointed out with words or signs of quotation. Thus, for example, in chapter five
of Barnabas's Epistle, we have the expression, "He chose for his disciples, to
go forth and announce his gospel, men full of sin and unrighteousness, in order
to show that he had not come to call the righteous, but sinners; and therefore
he revealed himself as the Son of God." What reader of these words could fail 162to see in them the reflection of what our Saviour
says in Matt. ix. 13, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance"?140140A later affix with Matt. than with Barnabas is "to repentance."
We have, moreover, in the twelfth chapter, "Since it is a thing in the e future141141By this I seek to render literally ἐπεὶ οὖν μέλλουσιν λέγειν.
that men shall say that Christ is David's son, therefore David himself, comprehending
in advance the error which sinners will make, says, 'The Lord says unto my Lord,
sit thou here on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.'" Could
Barnabas write this without presupposing that his readers would have Matt. xxii.
41, et sq. in mind? And in this presupposition is not the recognition of the authority
of the then extant Gospel of Matthew taken for granted? And if in the same twelfth
chapter of Matthew it is shown how Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness
in typification of the Saviour, "who should suffer (die) and yet himself give life
to others," it is directly obvious that Barnabas was making use of the truth hinted
at in John iii. 14, even if the phrase, taken word by word, fails to show this.
It is possible indeed that the writer of this 163Epistle wrote independently in this case, as in many others;
and yet we are justified in assuming the very great probability that he had the
passage of John in mind: still, in assuming this, it by no means follows that his
Epistle is written in the same tone as that of John's, and was a reflex of it. The
disproportionate number of express quotations from the Old Testament found in Barnabas
is in direct relation with the whole character of his Epistle: and no inference
can be drawn from it, which invalidates the canonization142142Not less than in Barnabas does it become clear in Justin that
he makes the brazen serpent of John's Gospel the type of the cross. Even Justin's
expression, Dial. 91, appeared to have flowed from a recollection of John:
Προσφεύγουσι τῷ τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον
υἱὸν αὐτοῦ πέμψαντι εἰς
τὸν κόσμον, for John iii. 17,
οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ θέος τὸν
υἱὸν αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν κόσμον, is closely connected with
iii. 14. Naturally,
with Barnabas there is the same process of divination applied that we find earlier
among the Clementines. So Volkmar i. a. 1. p. 67: The author "seems not to depend
at all upon the Sap. Sal. 16: 5, which had already prefigured the typical character
of the serpent. But least of all upon the Logos Gospel (John iii. 14), for his special
comparison of the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness with the lifting up
of Christ (on the cross and thus to the heaven) is wanting here: and how could one
who in this connection read 'in order that every one who should, believe in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life' discard such a saying as the above?
No one of us (!) could do it." In the same fashion Volkmar shows in his Append.
to Credner's Gesch. des Neutest. Kanons (1860, p. 372) that Tertullian had not been
acquainted with the first Epistle of Peter, or, if he could not deny to Tertullian
acquaintance with the work Adv. Gnosticos, asserts that it was only subsequently
to 207 that he was familiar with it. He writes, "What apt proofs it (the epistle)
offers to the opponent of the Gnosis de resurr. carn. . . . the Montanist moralist
even, de pudicit . . . or de habitu mulier. . . . How was he able to pass over Peter
in the letter, when going through the entire list of prophets and apostles? An Epistola
Petri has no place in his Instrumentum Apostolorum, as he draws it up in both its
chief forms." Pity that that whole course of acute reasoning finds its answer in
the fact (as Dr. Aberle has already shown in the Theol. Quartalschrift, 1864, 1)
that its first propounder has overlooked. Tertullian's complete work, De oratione,
where (Semler, p. 15, chap. xiv.) express reference is made to the "præscriptio
Petri," in 1 Pet. iii. of the Gospels.

Does,
then, the fact indicated by the Epistle of Barnabas, that the Gospel of Matthew
was reckoned a part of Holy Writ prior to the year 120, come into hazardous conflict
with the results already gained by us in our study of the second century? It is
needless to try to answer such a question. There is only downright gain to our side,
and that of a new and important link in the chain of proofs supporting the very
earliest acceptance of the credibility of the Gospels; a new barrier erected
against the idle vagaries of conjecture which have hitherto 164been allowed to float around and hide the history
of the New Testament canon.

But are we compelled to limit to Matthew the authenticity
thus granted to his canonical value? By no means. All our studies respecting the
history of the canon lead to this result, that the attempt was not made in the infancy
of the church to raise any one of the Gospels, taken exclusively, to the rank of
canonical writings. For we saw, in the first half of the second century, now Matthew,
now John, now Luke, or one taken in connection with another, come into the foreground;
and this shows conclusively that at that epoch no one was credited while another
was discredited. The small compass, too, of the literature which has come down to
us from that time, and the character of the Gospels, taken separately,—Matthew,
for example, being incomparably better adapted for quotation than Mark,—lead to
the inference that the one bears witness to the equal worth of the other. And we
learned, too, from Justin's use of the Acts of Pilate about the year 140, that the
Gospel of 165John, so much used, not only in those Acts which
were written some few decades before Justin's Apology, but also in connection with
the synoptic Gospels, must be assigned to the opening of the second century, Justin
himself having often made use of John, and still more frequently of Matthew. Is
not this alone satisfactory proof that if, at the time when the Epistle of Barnabas
was written, Matthew had attained to canonical authority, John too must have had
the same? Basilides used John and Luke at the time of Hadrian; Valentin, about 140,
John, Matthew, and Luke; and are there not safe inferences to be drawn thence that
these writers are in close alliance?

To this must be added the fact that we so early
and so repeatedly find, as, for example, in Justin and Agrippa Castor, the separate
Gospels united in one whole, and that, in view of the collective and grand character
thus given to this whole, the name and individuality of each writer are thrown into
the background, but that, on the other hand, Justin refers occasionally to the discrimination
made, at a later day, 166by Tertullian, in the character of the four
Evangelists, according to which some were the real disciples of the Lord, and
the others apostolical companions. And how are we to understand otherwise that
soon after the middle of the second century Harmonies of the Four Gospels were prepared, and that in
Irenæus——not to lose sight of him—the four are unitedly subjected to comment, without
the least hint of there being superior or inferior value on the part of the separate
Gospels? Is there the faintest indication that, in the course of the second century,
the church, while discussing many issues which are reported to us, took up and
passed its judgment upon the Gospel canon,—a fundamental matter; while, before
the close of that century, the same canon meets us everywhere as having been long
accepted?

But when, then, are we to consider that the canon passed into general
acceptance? Everything compels us to assign it to the close of the first century,
or to the opening years of the second. That was the time when, with the death
of the aged143143Irenæus says (hær. iii. 3: 4 and ii.
22: 5) that he lived in Trajan's day, 98 to 117. Eusebius (in the Chronicon) sets
his death at the year 100, and Jerome (de viris illustrib. and elsewhere) 68
years after the death of Christ. The Chronic. Pasch. has 72 years after the ascension of Christ. John, all the revered men 167who had stood in personal relations with Jesus, and
Paul too, the great apostle to the Gentiles, had passed away, and could no longer
give their direct authority in all ecclesiastical matters to the young church;
the time when the church was outgrowing its old home, and stretching wider and wider
out, convulsed within by various movements, and pressed upon without by hostile
assaults,—then it was that men began to consecrate and regard with hallowing
veneration the writings which the founders of the church had left behind them, gather
them up as imperishable bequests, as well-authenticated evidences of the life and
teachings of the Saviour, the most precious types of what men's faith and practice
should be. The fit time had evidently come to put these writings on the same basis
as that of the old covenant. The complete separation of the church from the synagogue
had taken place: subsequently to the destruction of Jerusalem and of its temple
(about the year 70), the church had been thrown more decidedly upon itself, and
lad become more independent; and it was a significant 168sign of this independence to ascribe to the
writings which recorded the life of the Saviour and the deeds of his followers
the
same sanctity which had long invested the sacred documents of the synagogue, on
which Christianity was based.

Do we ask in what way this has taken place? It certainly
is not a question which needs much time to enable us to answer it. If men like Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John left on record statements respecting the life of our Lord,
who would not have recognized them at once as a precious bequest to the church,
and gratefully accepted them? Did it require more than their honored names to insure
for their writings the greatest veneration by the whole church? And had not these
men all stood in close enough personal relations with the church to insure the
latter against receiving any works which should be unauthentic, and palmed off by
trickery? And of no Gospel is this more true than of John's. Suppose that it did
proceed from the midst of his Asia Minor congregations, and pass into the possession
of wider 169circles; could the least suspicion of a want of genuineness fasten
to it? But in case it did not proceed from his own congregations, would the latter
not have detected the imposition at once? It was impossible to bring them to accept
an unauthentic word of their own bishop; certainly not by deception. But we have
the bishop who followed John at Ephesus as one of the witnesses to the authenticity
of his Gospel. For if Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus in the last quarter of the
second century, in a letter addressed to Victor of Rome (Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 24),
alludes to the apostle buried in Ephesus, and characterized him with the same expression
which is used in John xiii. 23 and 25, "who leaned on the Lord's bosom,"—there
is beyond all doubt a confirmation of the Gospel. As to the rest, that John was
the last who wrote is evidenced not only by the very ancient tradition that he
was the one whose name was always mentioned after the others, as we have seen to
be the case in the hints drawn from Muratori, in Irenæus, and in the oldest Greek
manuscripts,144144The change of arrangement in several of our oldest Itala manuscripts
(Matthew, John, Luke, Mark) does not rest on a chronological basis, but, according
to Tertullian, upon the connection, first of the two men who were apostles, then
of those who were helpers of the apostles. but Clemens Alexandrinus 170and Eusebius give distinct expression to
it in what they have communicated to us respecting the circumstances which gave
rise to that Gospel. In the first of these latter writers (see Eus. vi. 14), the
wish of friends is represented as prompting the more spiritual-minded disciple to
add a fourth Gospel to the other three, for the purpose of recording more distinctly
the workings of Jesus' spirit. According to the latter (iii. 24), while confessing
the truth and authentic value of the first three Gospels, he is represented as omitting
what relates more exclusively to the public activity of Jesus, and giving a needful
compliment to the evangelical narrative.

Since, then, the writings left behind by
the apostles stand at the very outset in the personal authority of the writers,
this authority of course only grew in magnitude after the decease of the persons
who have personally been the representatives of the spirit of the Gospel. Out of
the vital development of the church grew the primitive canon of the New Testament,
and took its place side by side with the Old. 171It would be easy to admit that such a canon, in accordance
with its evangelical character (not to speak here of its other features), would
naturally fall within the time which has been assigned, viz., the close of the first
century: this, however, we should not be able to settle definitely145145This is in accord
with the statement of Eusebius iii. 37: 2, that already at Trajan's time (98 to
117) a part of the missionary activity inspired by Christianity consisted in the
diffusion of the written gospel narratives (καὶ τὴν τῶν θείων
εὐαγγελίων παραδιδόναι γραφήν).
unless the
history and literature of the whole second proved such a cogent argument in its
favor.

There is yet one thing more to add to what has already been said respecting
the oldest Christian literature. It is the evidence which Papias gives, and which,
more than any other, has beet misused by the opponents of our Gospels. The want
of positive knowledge which rests upon this man, as well as upon his testimony,
makes him not a fit subject to be taken either independently or in antagonism with
other witnesses.

From Eusebius (iii. 39) we learn, confirmed as it is by Irenæus
(v. 33: 4), that Papias composed a work in five books, which he called an Exposition
of the sayings of our Lord.146146Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις. Rufin, following the ancient
usage, translates λόγια by oracula. It is extremely probable that the book of Papias,
true to the chiliastic standpoint of the man, was largely devoted to the prophecies
of the Lord. Christian usage, however, gave the word a larger significance, so that
the sayings of the Lord and of the apostles, although not having the precise character
of prophecy, are yet called by that name, and the Holy Writ was designated as θεῖα λόγια.
Papias makes use of the same expression in conveying a notion of the contents
of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, where the narrower conception
conveyed in the word "prophecy" does not do justice to the meaning. While he was collecting the materials for this 172work he believed that his task was not so much
to cull what was to be found in written records as in unwritten tradition; and,
according to his own assurance, he drew especially from those oral accounts which
could be traced back to the apostles. These are his own words regarding his book:
"I shall arrange with assiduity whatever I may gather from the presbyters (elders),
and retain in memory, while aiming to ascertain the truth of the same by means of
personal investigation. For I did not find my pleasure, as most do, in those who
have much to tell, but in those who teach the truth; not in those who bring forward
what is strange, and out of the usual course (τὰ, ἀλλοτρίας ἐντολάς), but in those
who surrender themselves absolutely to the truth,147147Τὰς παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου τῇ πίστει
δεδομένας καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς παραγινομένας τῆς ἀληθείας. and claim lineage with what
is true. Whenever, therefore, I fell in with those who used to be on intimate terms
with the presbyters, I made special inquiries as to what Andrew, or Peter, or Philip,
or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other disciple of the Lord, or
as to what Aristion and John the presbyter, disciples also, have 173to say.148148Τοὺς τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ἀνέκρινον
λόγους, τι Ἀνδρέας ἢ τί Πέτρος εἶπεν . . . ἅ τε Ἀριστίων καί ὁ πρεσβύτ. Ἰωάνν. οἱ τοῦ κυρ. μαθηταὶ λέγουσιν.. For I believed that the books
(τὰ ἐκ τῶν βιβλίων)
would not be of so much service to me in giving exhaustive information as the living
word of men (quantum ex hominum adhuc superstitum voce)."

This passage of Papias
is obscure in various ways, and on this account I have endeavored to translate it
literally. The first and most important point to settle is, who the elders or "presbyters"
were. Papias alludes to them as his vouchers, whom he used in part directly, in
part indirectly. Are the apostles themselves to be regarded as covered by the expression?
It is supposed by many that they are; but this notion is absolutely denied and rendered
untenable by Eusebius. For, after stating that Irenæus designates Papias as a "hearer of John and companion of Polycarp,"
he qualifies his words by saying, "But
Papias has by no means represented him in the preface of his book as one who himself
heard and saw the holy apostles: he teaches, on the contrary, that he had received
the matters of faith (τὰ τῆς πίστεως) from those who had had personal acquaintance
with 174them (παρὰ τῶν ἐκείνοις γνωρίμων). In like manner,
he says, a little farther on in the same chapter (iii. 39: 4), Papias insists that
he received the words of the apostles from their own followers, and says that he
himself drew from the lips149149Τοὺς μὲν τῶν ἀππ. λόγους
παρὰ τῶν αὐτοῖς παρηκολουθηκότων ὁμολογεῖ παρειληψέν αι,
Ἀριστίωνος δὲ καὶ τοῦ πρεσβυτ. Ἰω. αὐτήκοον ἑαυτόν φησι γενέσθαι. of Aristion and the presbyter John; adding this, that
Papias often mentions these by name when giving in his book the communications which
they made. It is not only incredible that Eusebius erred in this, it was, indeed,
scarcely possible for him to do so. For, as he had the whole work of Papias before
him, and was making selections for his own purposes, it could scarcely escape him,
if Papias, in one case or another, appealed to the direct communication of an apostle,
clear as it was to him that he had known Aristion and the presbyter John. And how
wholly differently would he have brought forward in his preface his vouchers, had
they been the apostles! he surely would not have written, as he has, words which
are capable of a double interpretation, if he had been referring directly to them.
In the whole passage, however, the presbyters are set in contrast 171with the apostles; and yet the clause, ''the disciples
of the Lord," subjoined to the names Aristion and John the presbyter, makes the
meaning of this expression obscure; at least rendering a double interpretation of
it possible. And is it credible that Papias should say that he would confirm with
his own declarations the statement of the apostles? Respecting the words of the
presbyters, he could say this with the more justice, because, as his own words and
the declaration of Eusebius show, he was able to use of these only Aristion and
John; but in the case of the others, he had to rely on what was communicated indirectly.
Irenæus brings evidence confirmatory of this way of interpreting the term "presbyters;"
for he derives the tradition of the "wanton luxury of the kingdom of a thousand
years" expressly from the mouth of "the presbyters who had seen John, the disciple
of the Lord," and confirms this by appealing directly to the writings of Papias.
Granting in this way that he was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp, it is
perfectly clear that the presbyters in 176Irenæus have the same signification as in Papias,
and that they are not for an instant to be confounded with the apostles.150150To understand who these presbyters were,
it is not necessary to understand that they were personally connected with the immediate
companions of the apostles, as Irenæus (iv. 27: 1) shows: Quemadmodum audivi a
quodam presbytero (later it runs: inquit ille senior) qui audierat ab his qui apostolos
viderant et ab his qui didicerant. But Irenæus (v. 36: 2) refers to the "presbyters
" without any additional designation. This
inference respecting Papias which is found in Irenæus rests in the greatest probability
on no other ground than the statement of Papias himself, carefully drawn up by Eusebius,
but carelessly used by Irenæus; but that he confounded the apostle John, as his
manner of speaking would indicate, is consistent with the fact that, as can be shown,
the personality of the presbyter John, who likewise lived and died at Ephesus, was
forgotten at a very early day.151151As witness to his existence,
Dionysius of Alexandria (232, superintendent of the Alexandrine School of Catechumens)
quotes in Euseb. vii. 25: 6 the mere fact that there were two monuments at Ephesus
inscribed with the name of John, and Eusebius busies himself (iii. 29) more closely
with attempting to give more weight to the testimony of Papias to the existence
of the second John; in support of which he brings forward, evidently following the
lead of Dionysius, the existence of the two Johannean monuments at Ephesus. We ought not to overlook the chronological difficulty
connected with the supposition that Papias, who, according to the oldest testimony,
suffered martyrdom about the same time as Polycarp, i. e. 165, was not able to collect
the materials for his work among surviving apostles (παρὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων). How
little the contents, so far as we know them, correspond to what we should expect
from a work written by a disciple of the apostles, who is recording 177what he learned from their own lips, may be judged from
what we will proceed to give.

Eusebius cites explicitly from the contents of that
work of Papias, that the daughters of Philip informed him at Hierapolis of the resurrection
of a dead man immediately subsequently to their father's time, and that Justus Barsabbas
had drunken a goblet of poison without experiencing any injury. (Both of these
accounts might be brought into relation with expressions of our Lord, as in fulfillment
of them.) In addition, Papias asserted (we give the accounts in Eusebius iii. 39:
5 literally) that he had learned many things through oral tradition, as well as
some unknown (ξένας, strange) parables and teachings of the Lord, and other things,
which were all too fabulous" (μυθικώτερα). To this class Eusebius assigns the doctrine
of a kingdom of a thousand years' duration, which was to appear sensible on the
earth after the resurrection of the dead. The representation of this kingdom was
not given by Eusebius, but by Irenæus. It runs as follows: "Then shall come the
days in which vinestocks shall appear, 178each one putting forth ten thousand branches, each
branch ten thousand shoots, each shoot ten thousand clusters of grapes, and each
cluster twenty-five measures of wine; and if one of the saints should try to take
hold of one of the clusters, another of the latter will cry, I am better; lay hold
of me, and praise the Lord by me. In like manner, an ear of corn will bring forth
ten thousand ears, and each ear ten thousand grains," etc. This representation
is made by Papias, as Irenæus testifies, to refer to the "elders," and, through
them, even to John. Eusebius remarks, in reference to it, that Papias, a man of
very inconsiderable mental parts, as his whole book shows, gathered his notions
from misapprehended expressions of the apostles. He then goes on to say that there
are other sayings of the Lord, dating from Aristion and John the presbyter, recorded
in the book of Papias; but he refers those who may be interested in them to the
work itself. To this he adds that he will subjoin to what has been already cited
what he has learned respecting Mark. This runs, "And this says the presbyter: 179"Mark, the interpreter of Peter, wrote carefully down all
that he recollected, but not according to (τάξει) the order of Christ's speaking
or working; for he neither heard Christ, nor was a direct follower of him, but of
Peter, as already intimated, who always held his discourses as circumstances made
it expedient, but do not seek to arrange the sayings of the Lord in any regular
order. Mark accomplished all that he purposed in writing what he had to record just
as he remembered it. There was one thing, however, which he did keep in mind; that
was, not to omit anything that he had heard, or to falsify anything which he undertook
to set down." To this statement of Papias, which, judging by its tone, possibly
only refers in its first part to the presbyter, Eusebius subjoins a second statement
respecting Matthew, as follows: "This is what Papias records respecting Mark; but
of Matthew he says, 'Matthew recorded in the Hebrew language the sayings of the
Lord, but he translated every one of them as best he could." In these words much
is obscure: especially doubtful 180is it whether we have rightfully translated
"sayings of the Lord;"152152In the last passage we have τὰ λόγια without any further designation;
he refers however to what goes before, where we haveτῶν κυριακῶν
λογίων. at least the casual words of Mark, "what Christ spoke
and did," would seem to make it probable that both acts and words were comprehended
under the single word "sayings." But do these expressions of the presbyter and
of Papias—and this is the main question—relate to the two Gospels in our possession
bearing the names of Matthew and Mark? And if the expression, "sayings of the Lord,"
is to remain unmolested, it does not follow that a historical clothing of these
sayings is to be excluded, since neither Eusebius nor any other theologian of Christian
antiquity supposed that the words of Papias stood in antagonism with the two Gospels.
If in our time the inference has been drawn from the words of Papias, that our Gospel
according to Mark is to be regarded only in a secondary sense as the work of Mark,
and is to be regarded as a subsequent revision of a work once written by Mark, but
which was lost sight of at a very early date, the idea would show itself to be a
manifest freak of fancy. It would have 181no other mission than to open to the freest play of conjecture
all our investigations respecting the origin and the mutual relations of our three
synoptical Gospels.

True as this is of Mark, it is no less true of Matthew. The
statement of Papias has its point in this, that it ascribes only a Hebrew text to
Matthew even. If this statement have a satisfactory basis, even if we accept the
other, viz., that every one translated it as well as he could, it leaves a broad
margin between the primitive Hebrew and our Greek Matthew. That Hebrew text, like
the primitive Mark, must have been lost at a very early date, as not a single one
of the church Fathers saw or used it. This gives rise to one of the most intricate
of questions, the discussion of which, however, would not be in place here. We,
on our side, are fully satisfied in the matter, being convinced that the acceptance
by Papias of a primitive Hebrew text of Matthew (a view which may not have been
limited to him, and may have been repeated by others) rested entirely upon a misunderstanding.
I will briefly indicate of what 182character it was, and whence it arose. The Judo-Christian
struggles which sprung into being during the lifetime of the apostle Paul come more
and more markedly into the foreground. There were two parties specially prominent:
that of the Nazaræans was more moderate than the one more closely allied to philosophical
speculation, the Ebionites. Both made use of a Gospel which bore the name of Matthew,
the former in the Hebrew language, the latter in the Greek, the same document to
which reference was made on a preceding page as the Gospel of the Hebrews. That
they did not hesitate to make modifications according to their own taste, in the
text as they originally received it, is clear from the standpoint which they occupied,
that of being the only sect characterized by strong self-will. And what we have
really learned of this Gospel shows, as already stated, not only the great similarity
to our Matthew, but also arbitrary deviations which have been made from him in some
instances. When it was said later—I mean in the course of the second century—that
the Nazaræans, a race 183dating from the very emergence of Christianity, possessed Matthew in
the Hebrew, what was more natural than for one and another to assume, wholly in
accordance with the claims of the Judo-Christian heretics, that Matthew himself
wrote in Hebrew, and that the Greek text, the one which was circulated not only
in the church, but among other Judo-Christians, was a translation? No one knew,
no one made inquiries how divergent the two versions were; and not only were such
investigations foreign to the character of the times, but the exclusiveness of the Nazaræans especially drew them away from
such researches, making their home, as
they did, apart, in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea.

Jerome gives us the benefit
of his support in this explanation of the statement of Papias. Jerome, who was especially
skilled in Hebrew, gained the temporary use of a Hebrew Gospel of the Nazaræans,
and at once proclaimed that that was the primitive text of Matthew. Going deeper
into the matter, however, he simply said that many held this Hebrew text to be the 184original from Matthew's own hand;
he translated
it, moreover, into Greek and Latin, and made some comments upon it. From these,
as well as from some fragments preserved by the Fathers of the church, it may be
shown that the view represented by many scholars of late, and in a certain sense
shared with Papias, that the so-called Hebrew Gospel is older than Matthew, must
be received in its very opposite form; that that Hebrew book is a perversion of
our Greek Matthew, whose record bears the marks in the whole of its diction, and
especially in the form of its Old Testament quotations, of being no translation,
but an original. That same independence of our Matthew is to be marked in the Greek
version of the Hebrew Gospel current among the Ebionites, only with this distinction,
that here the heretical character may, in consequence of the various hands which
executed it, have assumed a more decided character. Being in Greek, it was better
known in the church than the Hebrew version; and in the very earliest epoch it was
held to be another text of Matthew. This agrees with what Papias wrote 185respecting the various versions of Matthew, among which
he reckoned the Greek Matthew then held by the church.

There is still more to be
said of Papias and his work. In relation to his efforts to obtain materials he wrote
that he believed that less was needed in consequence of what was already written
in books. To what books did he refer? May it not have been our own Gospels? The
expression used would make this not impossible, but the whole character of the book
would render it in the highest degree improbable; for he made no secret of his
object of preparing, on the ground of what was then, about A. D. 130 or 140,153153Eusebius speaks of Papias even at the time of Trajan.
related regarding the Saviour, a kind of supplement to the Gospels, and he may or
may not have directed special reference to the prophetical allusions to the Lord.
The Gospels, therefore, he could not have used as sources, and as affording materials
for his collections. The books referred to by him must be understood as rather relating
to unauthentic and more or less apocryphal records of the Lord's career, of which
there were so many from the 186earliest date. These he set over against the oral
communications which he had received, whose authenticity, as it could be traced
through the elders back to the apostles themselves, like the evangelical writings,
seemed to be unquestionable.

From that part of Papias's work which Eusebius thought
was worth preserving, I have already cited the story of the resurrection from the
dead which the daughters of Philip asserted that they had heard of their father,
and also the account of Justus Barsabbas and the poison. In a third passage, where
the Gospel of the Hebrews gives its corroborative evidence, he repeats the story
of a woman who had been accused before Jesus of sin. In like manner it was stated
in his book, as we learn of Catenen and Œkumenius, that Judas the betrayer was
of such monstrous corpulence that he was crushed by a carriage in a narrow street,
and that his bowels gushed out in consequence. Regarding the further contents of
the book, Eusebius informs us, as already remarked, that, in addition to a few matters
altogether 187fabulous, it contained a few parables and sayings of our
Lord, hitherto unknown but utterly unworthy of being recorded; and no ecclesiastical
writer has done so, excepting in the case of Irenæus's strange account of the kingdom
which should last a thousand years. In addition to this, Anastasius Sinaita has
called attention to the fact that Papias has made the days of creation and paradise
refer to Christ and the church; and Andrew the Cappadocian, in his Commentary on
the Apocalypse, quoted a remark of Papias respecting the angels who had been unfaithful
to their trust in the government of the world. The latter writer, as does Arethas
also, cites the authority of Papias in support of the credibility (Arethas uses
the word "inspiration") of the Apocalypse.154154The memorandum in a Latin Oxford codex of the fourteenth century, respecting
the four Marys, on whose margin is written the word Papias, is unquestionably to
be referred to a Papias of the middle ages, if there is any meaning to be ascribed
to marginal words. In such excerpts, particularly as they are given in the Catenas
and similar works, the addition of the author's name is a matter of the greatest
untrustworthiness.

In view of all that has been said
above, is Papias's book one which can be accepted as throwing important light upon
the history of our Gospels? The judgment of Eusebius respecting the man, that
he was of limited understanding, is justified not only by the details which are
brought into view, but confirmed by 188the fact that his alleged contributions to
our evangelical
literature have been utterly disregarded by the church. What would not a single
parable of the Lord be worth if its authenticity could be substantiated! But no
one has taken the slightest notice of all that has been recorded by Papias; the
fabulous character which Eusebius charges upon the book—a man himself characterized
by extreme critical acumen—has adhered to the whole work, and it is very unfair
to trace this charge to a prepossession in favor of the Chiliasts. The question
which has been raised we must answer in the negative, in view not only of the character
of the man but also of the tendency of his book, although the passage referring
to Matthew and Mark shows that that sort of matter was not absolutely excluded.
However much to be wished, however important it is to see light thrown upon that
very early Christian literature of which we find indications in the preface to Luke,
in order to enable us to see the origin and the mutual relation of our synoptic
Gospels cleared up, yet there is no use to be made 189of Papias's statements so far as they stand alone and in contradiction
to the sufficiently authenticated facts of his time. If he has nevertheless become
a torch-bearer of critical theology in our time, and a leader under whose guidance
we can be content to see the first two Gospels divided up into what are called their
authentic and unauthentic constituent parts, there is little result gained thereby
other than the rearing of an undeserved memorial to the bishop of Hierapolis.

Papias
is the most acceptable and important ally of the opponents of John's Gospel. And
why? Papias is silent respecting this Gospel. Strauss and Renan, with their
followers,155155So e. g. Zeller: "The silence of Papias will always afford conclusive evidence against the authenticity of the Gospel of John."
Theol. Jahrb. 1847, p. 199.
Hilgenfeld: "Had Papias said the least thing respecting a Gospel of John, Eusebius
could not possibly have overlooked it, and as he examined into the works transmitted
by John, he could not have kept silence had there existed a written Gospel from
his hand. Die Evangelien, p. 344. Strauss: "The silence of Papias respecting John
as the author of this Gospel is the more weighty in that he not only expressly assures
us that he has carefully looked into what was left behind by John, but that, as
the bishop of Asia Minor and an acquaintance of Polycarp, the disciple of John,
he would consequently know something more definitely respecting the apostle, who
spent his later years in Ephesus." Leben Jesu, p. 62. Renan: "Papias, qui avait
recueilli avec passion les récits oraux de cet Aristion et de ce Presbyteros Joannes,
ne dit pas un mot d’une Vie de Jésus écrite par Jean. Si une telle mention se fût
trouvée dans son ouvrage, Eusèbe, qui relève chez lui tout ce qui sert
à l’histoire
littéraire du siècle apostolique, en eût sans aucun doute fait la remarque." Vie
de Jesus, 3d éd. 1863, p. xxiv. Volkmar: "We may therefore certainly presuppose
that had Eusebius found a trace of the use of the anti-chiliastic Gospel of Papias
he would all the more eagerly have brought it out;" and this opinion is preceded
by the remark that "Papias edited his collection and interpretation of the Lord's prophecies about
the year 167 of our era." Ursprung uns. Evv. p. 59. make great account of this silence as opposed to the belief in the
authenticity of John's Gospel, and evidently consider it something which can not
be surmounted. I fear that my readers would not find it so after what has been said
above respecting the value of Papias's book. Does it not betray—I ask the reader
himself—complete ignorance of what Papias has said regarding his own undertaking,
to quote him as 190evidence against the Gospel of John? His remarks
respecting Mark and Matthew make no difference in the character of his whole book.
It is insisted, however, that Papias can not, from his silence, have known anything
about the Gospel of John, still less have acknowledged its authenticity. Naturally
here was supposed to be nothing less than decisive evidence against the genuineness
of this Gospel yet Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis, belonged even to the neighborhood
of Ephesus, whence John's Gospel must have gone forth into the world, and his work
can scarcely have been written prior to the middle of the second century. A more
groundless and trivial demand can hardly be made than to grant that the silence
of Papias respecting the Gospel of John constitutes a strong argument against its
genuineness. For, in the first place, to give evidence respecting this Gospel formed
no part whatever of the plan of Papias; and in the second place, from the fact that
Eusebius has cited nothing from Papias's book respecting it, no inference can justly
be drawn that there was nothing 191in that book which related to John's Gospel. The remarks respecting
Mark and Matthew are not cited by Eusebius in confirmation of the genuineness of
their Gospels, but simply in consequence of certain facts which they touch upon.
In the case of John—and this is the only inference which can be rationally drawn
from the silence of Eusebius—there were no circumstances which made it necessary
to cite what related to him.

Since, however, the opponents of John's Gospel have
made so much account of the silence of Eusebius in this matter, I can not refrain
from laying before the reader the great error into which they have fallen. They
completely overlook the purpose which Eusebius had in view in writing. Respecting
his object he expresses himself plainly enough (iii. 3: 2), where he says that he
wanted to trace in the ecclesiastical writers what portion of the Antilegomena
of the New Testament they had made use of, and what they have said about the Homologoumena,
as well as what does not fall under this head.156156Ὁποίαις κέχρηνται τῶν ἀντιλεγομένων,
τίνα τε περὶ τῶν ἐνδιαθήκων καὶ ὁμολογουμένων
γραφῶν καὶ ὅσα περὶ τῶν μὴ τοιούτων αὐτοῖς εἴρηται. Every one can see that this does
not mean that 192he meant to inquire which writings, both of the Antileogomena as well as the Homologoumena, they had used. In the case of
the Antilegomena,
or New Testament writings of doubtful authority, the object is to indicate the use
of passages cited, and in this way to make clear that this or that document was
recognized. A similar effort is not made by him in the case of the Homologoumena,
or writings invariably recognized as authentic, but he seeks as earnestly as in
the case of the other class, to collect ancient references to them, and what was
anciently known respecting them. That this construction of his purpose is the only
correct one, Eusebius shows not only in the case of Papias, but of all other writers
who happen to come under his notice. He never says respecting any one of the Gospels,
This one or that one has made use of it: this is much oftener the case in the allusion
to the Catholic Epistles,157157That 1 John
and 1 Peter can not be taken out of this category Eusebius himself declares, vi.
14, when he speaks of Clement. (See text immediately following.) From the representation
of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the seventh book of his Topographia Christiana we learn
in like manner that the authenticity of all the catholic epistles was contended
against. than to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse. But when he
cites what he finds in the older writers relative to the Gospels, he brings forward
all that refers to their origin, the time when they were 193written, and the occasion which gave them birth. This is the ease
with Irenæus, of whom Eusebius writes (v. 8) the following: "Matthew wrote
his Gospel among the Hebrews, in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching
in Rome and strengthening the church. After their death, Mark, the disciple aid
interpreter of Peter, wrote, recording what Peter had preached. Luke, the companion
of Paul, took down the Gospel as it was announced by the latter, and subsequently
John, the disciple who lay on the Lord's breast, wrote his Gospel during his sojourn
at Ephesus." Very instructive, moreover, are the extracts from Clement. Eusebius
says (vi. 14) that Clement briefly treats in his Hypotyposa all the biblical writings,
not passing over the Antilegomena. "I mean," he goes on to say literally, "the Epistle
of Jude, the other Catholic Epistles, that of Barnabas, and the Revelation ascribed
to Peter." He allows the Epistle to the Hebrews to have been written by Paul, but
in the Hebrew language. After further remarks respecting this Epistle, Eusebius
goes on to say: "But in 194the same treatise Clement communicates a tradition
of the following import respecting the true order of the Gospels; those were first
written which contain a genealogical record. Mark's Gospel, moreover, had the following
origin: When Peter was publicly preaching in Rome, and, filled with the Spirit,
was announcing the Gospel, Mark was urged by many who were present, to put on record
the statements of Peter, since he had long been Peter's companion and could remember
the substance of his discourses; and when in accordance with this request he wrote
his Gospel, he communicated it to those who had asked for it. Peter on his part,
when he learned what Mark was doing, neither took ground against it, nor urged him
to continue in it. And John, when he saw that that physical, active side of the
Saviour had been fully delineated in the first three Gospels, gratified the wish
of friends that he should portray Jesus on the spiritual sides This is what Clemens
communicates." We add to this what Eusebius (vi. 35) has taken, of, similar purport,
from Origen: that from tradition 195he had gathered that one of the four Gospels which had universal
credence in God's church on earth, the one bearing the name of Matthew, at first
a collector of customs and then an apostle of Jesus, was the one first written;
and that it was composed in the Hebrew tongue and dedicated to believers who had
come out from Judaism. The second in the order of the writing was Mark's, who had
followed Peter's lead, and whom Peter himself recognizes in his catholic epistle
as his son,—"My son Mark greeteth you." The third was Luke's, defended by Paul, and
prepared for the use of those who were converted from heathendom. All these were
followed by the one which bears the name of John.

Now does not a glance show that
all these passages from Irenæus, Clemens and Origen were not quoted by Eusebius
for the purpose of proving the genuineness of the Gospels, and just as little
what Papias has to say about Mark and Matthew, but that they were recorded merely
as interesting facts relative to the distinctive 196history of each one of the evangelical
records?

But we have the most striking confirmation of our view in extracts from
writers still older, whose clear and distinct testimony to our Gospels and other
Homologoumena, such as the Pauline Epistles, are passed over by Eusebius in accordance
with his general design, while he records what seemed to him to support the Antilegomena.
Here Papias himself is at the head; at any rate Eusebius remarks expressly respecting
him at the end of his treatise, that he had used proof texts from the First Epistle
of John, and also from that Of Peter.158158The statement of Andrew in the sixth book that Papias
bore witness to the trustworthiness (τὸ ἀξιόπιστον) of the Apocalypse neither coincides
with the assertion that Eusebius overlooked the testimony borne to the Johannean
Apocalypse by Papias, nor, still less, with the suspicion uttered by Volkmar (p.
59) that Eusebius passed over this evidence "on account of his partisan feeling
against the Apocalypse." It is decisive against this suspicion that Eusebius has
mentioned Justin and Theophilus as credible witnesses for the Apocalypse. Further he says (iv. 18: 3) of Justin,
that he had borne in mind the Apocalypse of John, and expressly allowed that it
was written by the apostle; but of the quotations from the Gospels found in him,
he does not have a syllable. From Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians he draws
the statement (iv. 14) that he was indebted for many proof texts to the First
Epistle of Peter; but of the far more numerous Pauline, citations, taken from the
majority of Paul's 197Epistles, he says nothing.159159Hilgenfeld sought to take away
the force of this proof, and wrote in his journal, 1865, pt. 3, p. 335: "Manifestly
it is quite a different thing if Eusebius does not hold, in regard to the epistle
of Polycarp to the Philippians, the testimony in behalf of the epistle of Paul to
this community, an epistle which is unquestionably Pauline in its origin; and merely
remarks, though expressly, the use of the first epistle of Peter, which, although
a subject of dispute, unquestionably belonged to the much contested catholic epistles."
In more prudent fashion, however, Hilgenfeld mentions to his readers the epistle
to the Philippians merely, to whom Polycarp himself writes, and does not mention
that the extracts are taken from many other Pauline letters. Of Clemens Romanus he remarks that he
had taken many ideas from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and often in the original
words, while he passes in silence over all quotations from the Pauline Epistles.
From the three books of Theophilus to Autolycus, and from the one directed against
the heresy of Hermogenes, he cites (iv. 14) nothing further than that in the latter
he makes use of passages in the Apocalypse of John; and yet Theophilus often and
unmistakably uses the Pauline Epistles (e. g. Rom. ii. 6, et seq. ad Autolyc. i.
14; Rom. xiii. 7, et sq. ad Autolyc. iii. 14); he even (and this is the most pertinent
to our needs) cites the Gospel of John under that very appellation.

With all this,
do we not apprehend the aim of what Eusebius records? And may we not steer clear
of the long-continued perversion160160As
lately as 1865, Hilgenfeld wrote: "How can the inference be drawn otherwise than
that Eusebius searched carefully in Papias also for all evidences of New Testament
writings, and failed to communicate anything respecting the canonical fourfoldness
of the Gospels, and especially respecting the Gospel of John, only because he found
no evidence? " "Who does not see that the fourfoldness of the canonical gospels
had no existence at the time of Papias?" of his purpose? On our part, we are of the firm
conviction that it needs only an upright determination to discern the truth as it
is in order to see the complete worthlessness of this famous Papias argument against
the Gospel of John.

198

The absurdity of the argument that the unfortunate
Bishop of Hierapolis, shortly before the middle of the second century, knew nothing
of the writings of Luke and the Epistles of Paul, because, judging by Eusebius's
silence, he made no mention of them, has been long perceived; but very recently
it has been set aside161161See Volkmar i. a. 1.
p. 61: "It is an entire distortion of the case for Tischendorf to try to trouble me with the ' absurdity' of the notion that
Papias
knew nothing of Luke as well: he may just as well have been acquainted with Luke's
Gospel as with John's, but may have looked down upon both as too free, Paul-like,
anti-Judaic-Christian and anti-chiliastic." "Although he does not defend himself
exactly so in respect to the Gospel of Luke, the reason is that it was not enough
held in common regard as Luco-Pauline, and he did not need his millenary traditions
to defend himself against such a non-authority. What follows, therefore, from this
nearer examination of the Papias contexts in relation to the Gospel of the Spirit's
Parusia? Either he really did not become acquainted with it in his own Hierapolis,
or he did not discover it with the superscription 'according to John,' and certainly
not having canonical authority to be disowned by his silence. His testimony remains
therefore unchanged; it must be taken without evasion. Papias's silence respecting
Luke and John does not bear direct witness indeed for the non-existence of their
Gospels, but for their non-apostolical authority; or rather that both Gospels were
without apostolical authority with the larger number of contemporaries for whom
Papias gathered and expounded his chiliastic traditions." by those who are the rudest opponents of ecclesiasticism,
on the ground that the bishop may have been silent about things which he knew, but
which seemed too trivial to mention. Still less trouble has it caused this party
that, according to Eusebius's express testimony, Papias made use of the First Epistle
of John. In the place, some pages back, where we had. occasion to refer to Polycarp's
use of this same Epistle, it was said that the evidence in favor of this Epistle
is equally applicable to the Gospels; but we asserted that not only had the identity
of authorship in these two treatises been called into question, but that there has
been a hasty impulse to cast the Epistle itself overboard. Thus Papias's silence
was to bring the Gospel into utter disrepute, while, with his distinct 199testimony, he could not shield the Epistle from the
attacks of overbearing critics.

In view of such proceedings, it is a genuine satisfaction
to know that there has recently been brought to light a work printed long ago, but
quite forgotten, in which Papias and his book give direct testimony in behalf of
the Gospel, which is assaulted under the protection of his name. It is a prologue
to the Gospel of John in a Latin manuscript of the Vatican (leaf 244), which, by
a note in an old hand, is traced back to the possession of the Bohemian, Duke Wenceslaus
(iste liber creditur fuisse Divi Venceslai Ducis Boemiæ), and which, according
to the appearances of the writing, dates from the ninth century. It is now designated
Vat. Alex. No. 14.162162During
my recent visit to Rome (March, 1866), Cardinal Pitra, the learned Benedictine,
called my attention to this manuscript; yet Cardinal Jos. Mar. Thomasius had already
given place to the prologue accompanying it in his collections (Opp. omnia, tom.
i. Rome, 1747, p. 344), where Dr. Aberle of Tubingen had noticed it, and learnedly
discussed it in the first number of his Quarterly, 1864, pp. 1-47. The prologue discloses that it was composed prior to the time
of Jerome, and begins with the words, "Evangelium iohannis manifestatum et datum
est ecclesiis ab iohanne adhuc in corpore constituto, sicut papias nomine hierapolitanus
discipulus iohannis carus in exotericis id est in extremis quinque libris retulit."
There can be 200no stronger testimony than this that Papias did
give evidence in behalf of John's Gospel. The further purport of the prologue is,
with all its brevity, rich in surprising facts. That it sprang from the work of
Papias seems, however, on more grounds than one, to be doubtful; and on this account
the credibility of the other matters which it communicates can not be put on the
same footing with the first.163163It is further stated: Disscripsit vero evangelium dictante lohanne recte.
That the writer of this prologue wanted that this should be understood of John,
the prologue prefixed to the Greek Catena text to John, and edited by Corderius,
proves, which runs thus:
ὑπαγόρευσε
(sic)τὸ εὐαγγ. τῷ ἑαυτοῦ μαθητῇ Παπίᾳ εὐβιώτῷ τῷ Ἱεραπολίτῃ. It is clear that this traditional statement is not to be reconciled
with Eusebius. Directly subsequently in the prologue it runs: Verum Marcion hereticus
cum ab eo (codex abe) fuisset improbatus, eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus
est a Iohanne. Is vero scripta aut epistolas ad eum pertulerat a fratribus qui in
ponto fuerunt. It has already been stated that this tradition respecting
Marcion is not an isolated one.

Before leaving Papias, however, we must revert to one source
of evidence in favor of John's Gospel, which Irenæus (v. 36: 2) cites even
from the lips of the presbyters, those high authorities of Papias: "And on this
account they say that the Lord used the expression, 'In my Father's house are
many mansions'" (John xiv. 2). As the
presbyters put this expression164164III. 36: 1 is
Presbyteri; directly after:
Dicunt presbyteri apostolorum discipuli; and shortly
before, in connection with the account of the reign of a thousand years:
Presbyteri qui Johannem discipulum domini viderunt. in connection
with the degrees of elevation granted to the just in the City of God, in
Paradise, in Heaven, according as they bring their thirty, sixty, or a
hundred-fold from the harvest, so nothing is more probable than that
Irenæus borrowed this whole expression of the presbyter, together with the
portraiture already referred 201to of the kingdom of a thousand
years, from the work of Papias. Whether it comes from that source, however, or
not, on every ground the authority of the presbyters stands higher than that of
Papias; it takes us back unquestionably to the close of the apostolical period.
In what way, and with what machinery, the noted men with whom unbelief becomes
an art, and whose very efforts to propagate it are labored at with artistic
ingenuity, will be able to set aside this evidence in support of John's Gospel,
and, together with the testimony of the presbyters, that of Papias in the Latin
prologue to John, is not apparent to me; yet I do not doubt that the skill which
has defied all efforts to baffle it as yet, will be able to meet and overcome
even this obstacle.

And lastly, we have to trace the bearings of New Testament
textual criticism on the question under discussion. This is the science which
has to do with the primitive documents of the sacred text, the direct bearer of
saving truth. Investigation into these primitive documents ought to throw light
upon the history of 202the sacred text; i.e. we ought to learn from
them what in all times Christendom has united in finding recorded in the books
which contain the New Testament; this, e.g., what Columba, the pious and learned
Irish monk of the sixth century; what Ambrose at Milan, and Augustine in Africa,
in the fourth century; what Cyprian and Tertullian, in the third and second
centuries, found recorded in their Latin copies of the New Testament: in like
manner, what Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, in the tenth; Cyril, the
Bishop of Jerusalem, in the fifth; Athanasius and Origen of Alexandria, in the
fourth and third centuries, found on record in the Greek copies of their time.
The final and highest object of these investigations consists in this,
however,—to trace with exactness those expressions and words which the holy
apostles either wrote with their own hand or dictated to others. If the New
Testament is the most important and most hallowed book in the world, we must
certainly lay the greatest value on all efforts to possess the text in which it
was originally written in its most perfect 203state, without
omissions, without additions, and without changes. Should it be impossible to
attain this result, still the task would at any rate be ours to approximate as
closely as possible to the primitive form of the text.

The question will at once recur to many readers, Do our
ordinary editions of the Bible not contain the genuine and true text? The German
Protestant, with his Luther's Bible in his hand, would ask this question; so
would the Catholic, with his Latin Vulgate, or his German or French translation
of it; so would the Englishman, with his Authorized Version; so too would the
Russian, with his Sclavonic text. The answer to this question, viewed from what
side we will, is not light. Every one of these translations has again its own
more or less rich text-history, and there is no one which has not enough of the
original to insure the degree of faith necessary to salvation. But if the effort
be made to see how closely each follows the original, how truly each has
preserved the text as it was given by the apostles, it must be compared with the
original text, 204from which, directly or indirectly, all have
flowed. We know that the Greek is the original text of the New Testament. And
how is it with the genuineness of this text?

When the discovery of printing, in the first quarter of the
sixteenth century, was applied to the publication of the Greek New Testament,
Erasmus, at Bâle, and Cardinal Ximenes, at Alcala, took as the basis of the
work such manuscripts as were at their command. Their editions were repeated
elsewhere, often with slight modification of the original text, according to
other manuscripts. The learned Parisian printer, Robert Stephens, introduced
some such modifications; the Elzevir followed, the work of a Leyden printer; and
soon the force of usage became so powerful that the theologians accepted the
text as it was established by the Erasmus, Elzevir, and Robert Etienne editions
as a kind of authorized general edition. In the mean time, scholars had begun to
trace new sources,—Greek manuscripts written in the first century, as well as
manuscripts prepared for the translations effected in the first five centuries 205
into Latin, Gothic, Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian; to these may be added the
textual readings which are found recorded in the works of the church Fathers of
the second century. From this there issued at last the result that, under the
hand of the various transcribers, learned as well as unlearned, the New
Testament text has assumed extraordinary diversity in its readings. And,
although this diversity is, in thousands of passages, limited to merely
grammatical forms, having no relation to the sense, there is no lack of places
which involve more important matters, and which are of historical and dogmatic
value. After this had gone on so far that the whole of Christendom was
interested in the highest degree in the matter, earnest men, with whom it was a
sacred duty to ascertain what is truth rather than to conform with established
usage, conceived that it was their especial task to reform the ordinary text by
incorporating upon it the results of examining the ancient but later discovered
manuscripts. Still, it is only in the most recent period that men have dared to
lay aside the 206ordinary text, which had no scientific guaranty of
authenticity, and to bring into exclusive use the text of the earliest
documents. For it needs no proof that the oldest documents, those which run back
to within a few centuries of the first composition, must be truer to the
original than those which were written a thousand years or more subsequently to
the first composition. In giving the preference to the most ancient documents,
however, there is the rigid duty of examining them most carefully in respect to
their intrinsic character and their mutual relations. With this is to be coupled
the fact that our various most ancient manuscripts give the text with a great
diversity of readings, through which cause their use is made much more difficult
in establishing the original text given by the apostles. All the more necessary
was it, therefore, to seek the oldest and most trustworthy of them all. In order
to do this, Richard Bentley considered it important to give the preference to
that text which shows the closest accordance with the oldest Greek documents and
the Latin text of the fourth century. In 207accordance with Bentley's
judgment, Carl Lachmann undertook, with very few aids, the restoration of the
text which was generally diffused in the fourth century; for there seems to be
no possibility of reaching any documentary evidence which goes back of that age.
There is no doubt that the earliest Latin translation of the Gospels—to limit
ourselves to this—was written soon after the middle of the second century; for,
as I have had occasion to remark above, the Latin translator of Irenæus,
before the close of the second century, and Tertullian in the last decade of the
same century, appear to have been in undisputed dependence upon it. This oldest
translation we possess165165It has had a great many
stadia to run through from its ancient use down to the present use by the
Romish Church. After going through several hands in the third and fourth
centuries, and after repeatedly undergoing revisions in accord with the Greek
text, Jerome formed his text from it, not without reference moreover to Greek
authorities which were allied to it. The use of the Romish Church gradually made
this the Vulgate. It had, however, experienced many modifications, when the
Roman Curia, towards the end of the sixteenth century, took advantage of the
general diffusion of manuscripts to execute an official revision of the Vulgate,
and it is this which now is authorized in the Roman Catholic Church. at
the present time,—certainly in its main body; for our oldest documents, reaching
back to the fifth century, and which bear relation to the text which was
prepared in North Africa, the home of Tertullian, find a frequent confirmation
of their readings in the two witnesses already mentioned, the translators of
Irenæus and Tertullian. And on this account, in behalf of those texts which
men have not recorded in 208their writings, it must be admitted that
they correspond to the very earliest edition, or are very nearly allied to it.
By the discovery of the Sinaitic manuscript we have advanced yet' farther; for
this text, which, on palæographical grounds, has been assigned by competent
scholars to the middle of the fourth century, stands in such surprising alliance
with the oldest Latin translation that it is really to be regarded as coincident
with the text which, soon after the middle of the second century, served the
first Latin translator, the preserver of the so-called Itala, as a foundation.
And that this text was not an isolated one is manifest from the fact that the
oldest Syrian text, contained in a manuscript of the fifth century, lately
discovered in the Nitrian desert, as well as Origen and others of the earliest
Fathers, stands in specially close connection with it. The Syrian text just
mentioned possesses on its side a power of carrying conviction quite analogous
to the Itala, and manifesting it in that double way which I have endeavored to
set forth; for the latest investigations leave no doubt that the Peshito, which 209
is universally ascribed to the close of the second century, presupposes the
existence of the Nitrian text, so that the latter must have arisen about the
middle of the second century.

What now follows from all these considerations in the way of
answering the question which has been raised? Two things we have to make use of
and apply in the most emphatic manner. At the very outset of this work I have
indicated it as a noteworthy fact, that soon after the middle, and even about
the middle, of the second century, the four Gospels underwent an undoubted
common translation, and appeared in a Latin as well as in a Syriac version.
These translations not only prove the same thing which the harmonistic treatment
of the Gospels by Tatian of Syria and by Theophilus at almost the same epoch
proves; they prove at the same time much more, namely, that as the Gospels of
Luke and John were in existence at that time in the same form in which we have
them now, so were those of Matthew and Mark. If isolated citations from the
oldest epoch allow the suspicion that instead of our Matthew, the 210
nearly related and only subsequently discriminated Gospel of the Hebrews was
perhaps used, or that even our Mark had then taken that primitive form which is
indicated in the recent investigations of Papias's account, yet the oldest Latin
texts of these Gospels completely exclude this suspicion, at least so far as.
the middle of the second century is concerned. They give thoughtful
investigators as little ground for believing that these texts might shortly
before have been developed by unknown hands from a previous form, and now in an
unskillful fashion, after the change which has been wrought upon them by the
Latin Church, are held to be the original draft. Even here the Nitrian text
stands by the side of the Itala in confirmation of it, omitting, however, the
Gospel of Mark, with the exception of the last four verses. It is well known
that the discoverer and editor of this text uttered his conviction, and
strengthened it with plausible proofs, that in the case of the Gospel of Matthew
this text may have sprung from the original Hebrew form. In opposition to 211
this decidedly erroneous impression, the agreement of the same Syrian text with
our oldest Greek and Latin documents confirms in the most striking manner our
conclusion in relation to the Greek text of Matthew, as well as the conclusion
that in the middle of the second century there was no other text of Matthew than
the one which we possess. And so far as Mark is concerned, this Syrian
translator bears witness in support of the closing verses already employed by
Irenæus, which, according to decisive critical authority, are not genuine,
but which were appended to the accepted text of Mark's Gospel.166166It
is an interesting memorial of the negative school of criticism at the present
day, that its representatives, in part at least, take particular pleasure in
basing their defense upon just those weighty scripture passages respecting whose
want of authenticity the criticism which adheres closely to documentary
evidence, as gained from the most recent discoveries, leaves no doubt at all.
Among such passages may be reckoned the close of Mark's Gospel, the narrative
respecting the adulteress in John, and the story of the descent of the angel
into the pool of Bethesda in the fourth verse of the fifth chapter of the same
Gospel. Certainly there can be no doubt that it far better
subserves the ends opposed to apologetics to leave such apocryphal passages as
these in both the Gospels mentioned, than by their omission to seem to give
advantage to those who claim the apostolical origin of those Gospels. That that
alliance between legitimism and its most determined opponents repeats itself on
a political field, argues a wicked misunderstanding on the part of scholars of
reputed orthodoxy.

But I have yet another matter of textual criticism to take
note of, which in my judgment affords evidence that our collective Gospels are
to be traced back at least to the beginning of the second or the end of the
first century. As on the one side the text of the Sinaitic manuscript, together
with the oldest Itala text, is to be assigned specifically to the use of the
second century, so on the other side it is easy to establish that that same
text, in spite of all 212its superiority over other documents, had
assumed even their differences in many respects from the primitive purity of the
reading, and that it even then presupposed a complete text-history. We are not
directed in this exclusively to the Codex Sinaiticus and one or another of the
Itala manuscripts, together with Irenæus and Tertullian: but we can accept
all these documents, which we must assign, partly from necessity and partly with
the greatest probability, to the second century; the fact is undeniable that
there was even then a rich text-history. We mean by this that even prior to the
second half of the second century, while copy after copy of our Gospels was
made, not only are there many errors of transcribers to be found, but the
phraseology and the sense in particular places are changed, and larger or
smaller additions are made from apocryphal and oral sources. With all this, such
changes are not excluded which were the result of putting together separate
parallel passages, and these testify in a striking manner to the early union of
our Gospels in a single canon. If this 213is really the case, there
is an important stadium of the textual history of our four Gospels prior to the
middle of the second century, prior to the time when canonical authority,
together with the more settled ecclesiastical order, made arbitrary changes in
the sacred text more and more difficult,—this I shall take occasion to show
fully at another time,—and for the lapse of this history we must assume at least
a half century. According to this, must not—I dare not say the origin of the
Gospels, but—the establishment of the evangelical canon be set at the close of
the first century? And is not this result all the more certain from the
coincidence with it of all the historical factors of the second century, which
we have reviewed without any reserve?

There will be those, it is not to be doubted, who will accuse
us of one-sidedness and want pf thoroughness. And in truth we have passed over
some things whose examination would have been in accordance with my purpose to
pass in review all the oldest documents which could throw light upon the Gospels
or illuminate 214their primitive recognition. If we have omitted
anything, it is only because the inferences to be drawn from them touch too
closely, as it has seemed to us,—perhaps wrongly,—upon the domain of hypothesis
to give really solid results to our investigation. But in what we have passed
over there is nothing which is antagonistic to what has been already advanced.
We allude, e. g., to the earliest traces of a canonic indication and collection
of apostolic writings, including the earliest appendices to the New Testament,
and contained in a portion of the New Testament itself as the church established
it in the fourth century. This is certainly the most recent portion, viz., the
Second Epistle of Peter; where, (iii. 16),
reference is made not only to the collection of the Pauline Epistles, but of
other New Testament writings;167167Τὰς
λοιπὰς γραφὰς
in this connection must be referred to other New Testament Scriptures. If those
of the Old Testament were meant, the Pauline epistles would here be clearly
placed upon the same footing with the Old Testament. also the closing
verses of John's Gospel, of which verse twenty-fourth is held with the most
correctness as the oldest testimony from the hand of a presbyter of Ephesus in
favor of John's authorship.168168Verse 25, against
whose genuineness most serious objections have long been expressed, has now in
the primitive Codex Sinaiticus the most weighty authority against itself. (It
has been an error that down to this time Cod. 63 has been cited in the same
sense.) The Testaments of the twelve patriarchs,169169For
the purpose of superseding Grabe's extremely imperfect edition of this important
work, I have long been making the requisite preparations in the English and
French libraries. It was my good fortune to discover in 1844 an
entirely unknown manuscript bearing on this matter, in the island of Patmos.
too, contain undeniable 215traces of an acquaintance with the books
of the New Testament, the Gospels as well as the Pauline Epistles and the
Apocalypse; they confirm, therefore, the existence of a collection of the books
of the New Testament at the time when they were written, and this time can
scarcely be set later than the close of the first or the opening of the second
century.170170We can understand the remark of I.
Nitzsch in 1810 (de Testam. xii. Patriarch. etc. Comm. critica, p. 17), that the
author of this Testament could not have lived in the first century, since he
alluded to almost all the books of the New Testament. "Si ante
casum Hierosolymorum floruisset, hunc non tam diserte indicasset; sin omnino
sæculo primo, non cognovisset ad quos fere omnes allusit Novi Testamenti
libros."
But so far as definite details are concerned, such as can be drawn into active
service by those who are most determined in their opposition to John's Gospel,
we can discover nothing but misunderstanding and unjustified conclusions. It is
a misunderstanding, for example, to bring the celebration in Asia Minor of the
feast of the Passover into antagonism with the Gospel of John; for the festival
as it is celebrated there, which builds simply upon the example of John, is
erroneously understood as if it related to the Last Supper, while it really
commemorates the death of Jesus the true paschal Lamb (1
Cor. v. 7), the historic basis being given for it in John's Gospel.
But when men bring the relation of John's to the synoptic Gospels as 216
the ground for suspicion respecting the apostolic origin of the former, and cite
the peculiarity of John's diction, as well as that of the Apocalypse, the
universal character of his Gospel compared with
Gal. ii. 9, and its dogmatic character, especially in relation to the
person of Christ, as brought into contrast with the history of the Christian
doctrine, they profess to know more than it is granted to man to know, and use
what is naturally hypothetical and uncertain to throw doubts over what is clear
and fixed. Against tactics which rely upon the appearance of knowledge and
cunningly shaped hypotheses, and which are shrewdly devised to entrap the
simple, there is need of summoning the aid of definite and ascertained facts.

We can only call it a welcome occurrence that through the
radical character of the two most distinguished modern biographers of Jesus, the
Tubingen fantasy-builder and the Parisian caricaturist, the contrasts between
belief and disbelief in the Gospels and the Lord have been made thoroughly
apparent. It is 217only clear vision which leads to the gift of sure
decision. Never before have theologians joined in with the Christian church and
the whole world of culture in demanding so appositely as now, How is it down at
the foundations, respecting our evangelical belief in the Lord? Nothing is
easier than to deceive those who are not in a position which enables them to
answer in a scientific manner this greatest question of Christendom; nothing
easier than to mislead them under a pretense of learned and honest
investigation. Yet the character of this age grants all license to thorough and
honorable inquiry in matters where, in former ages less intelligent than ours,
faith, and a faith too that often enough was blind, had unquestioned sway. It is
just from this that many who have not been able to enter deeply into this class
of studies have come to believe that if we look at the matter thoroughly and
scientifically there is a great deal of doubt about the facts of Jesus' life.
And scarcely anything has had more factitious influence in inducing this
incredulity than the often-repeated statement that 218the ancient
history of the Christian church gives the most conclusive testimony against the
genuineness of our Gospels, especially that of John, in which the divine-human
character of the Saviour of the world stands forth to the offense and confusion
of an unchristian age more manifestly than in the synoptic Gospels. In the
course of this investigation we have been brought to exactly the opposite view.
To awaken doubts respecting the genuineness of our Gospels, and John's
especially, in thy minds of the lettered as well as the unlettered, to cause
many to deny them even, is the work of, that skeptical spirit which has attained
to almost undisputed pre-eminence during the past hundred years. And yet there
are few instances in the collective literature of antiquity of so general and
commanding assent being given to works of a historical character as to our four
Gospels.

Against that kind of unbelief which has taken root in the
modern frivolous school of religious literature, in that earth-born emancipation
of the human spirit which will allow of 219no subjugation by the
Spirit of God, science has no weapons. It is their unbelief which has
incorporated itself into Renan's book: therein lies its power, its secret of
success; there is no need of learned inquiry respecting it: the parti-colored
rags which it has borrowed of science only partially conceal the naked limbs. It
is quite otherwise with the learned arguments which have been brought against
the life of Jesus, and the historic attacks which have been made upon the
authenticity of the evangelical sources. Here we have to protest with the utmost
decisiveness, but on the ground of rigid scientific investigation. The victory
of God in behalf of right belongs to truth alone. It is only a petty littleness
of belief that can believe that the sacred interests of truth are imperiled by
the use of those dishonored weapons which are so much in vogue in the present
age. But whoever stands in the interest of that truth which is to enter into
victory must display his faith in the result by no timid counting of costs, but
by the constant exercise of his best knowledge and most conscientious endeavors.

21That this was the true date when this catalogue
was proposed, is rendered more certain by the circumstance that the author indicates the episcopate of Pius, which is generally
computed to have extended from 142 to 157, by the words temporibus nostris and
nuperrime,
i. e. "in our time," and "very recently." And even when he follows his own conjectures,
or those which were then general, respecting any matter, as, for example, his ascribing
the "Shepherds," an apocalyptic book of edification, to Hermas the brother of Pius
the Roman bishop, his chronological statements must still be conceded not to have
lost any validity.

28 Theophilus was appointed bishop of Antioch, according to the statement
of
Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iv. 19 and 20), about the eighth year of Marcus Aurelius's
reign, i. e., about 168, at the same time that Soter was bishop of Rome. The third
book of his able Apology to Autolycus he wrote, according to his own statement,
in the year 181; the first two books in the year 180. It is extremely probable that
the compilation from the Gospels was intended to serve in helping him discharge
his official duties,—at the outset, at least, of his term of service. Tatian himself
tells us (Orat. ad Græc. 19) that when in Rome together with Justin he shared the
persecution experienced by the cynic philosopher Crescens. After Justin had fallen
as a martyr, Tatian left Rome; in Syria, where he lived subsequently, he embraced
the Gnostic heresies; at the time when Irenæus was preparing his work aimed against
this school, i. e. about 177, Tatian does not appear to have been living. Comp.
Iren. adv. hær. 1: 28. Tatian can not have written his celebrated apologetic work,
Addresses to the Heathen, before his teacher's death (166), but he may have done so soon after. In all
probability, however, he had prepared the Diatessaron still earlier.

32Jerome, in the passage already cited, as well
as elsewhere (in his Catalogus de Viris Illustribus), alludes to Theophilus as the
author of a commentary on the Gospel (a term applied, according to the usage of
that time, to the four Gospels co-ordinated into a single narrative), and even makes
use of it in explaining the parable of the Unjust Steward; it is very probable,
therefore, that this commentary was bound up with the Gospels.

33Hegesippus
wrote a history of the church, coming down to Eleutheros, bishop of Rome, who is
generally thought to have been in office from 177 to 193. Eusebius has made extensive
use of this work (iv. 8 and 22) in preparing his own history, and gives its author
great credit for the reliability of all his statements, and for his doctrinal soundness
(iv. 21). In addition to the fragments which Eusebius has preserved, we possess
another statement respecting Hegesippus, taken by Photius from Stephanus Gobarus,
a monophysite living at the close of the sixth century, and incorporated in his
Bibliotheca, No. 232, Bekker's edition, p. 288. In the fragments of Stephanus Gobarus,
we read, in connection with the quotation, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him," that Hegesippus declared that this was a vain and meaningless saying,
and that all such passages are in contradiction to the sacred scripture and to the
words of the Lord, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see, and the
ears that hear the things that ye hear." From this passage in Stephanus Gobarus
it is not clear against whom or against what false doctrine Hegesippus's animadversion
was directed. It is most probable that he aimed chiefly at a docetic error respecting
the per son of Christ. As Paul quoted the words cited above, from 1 Cor. ii. 9,
either from Isaiah lxiv. 3 and 4, or, as Origen supposed, from an apocryphal book
known by the name of Elias, it became the belief of certain theologians that Hegesippus
intended to reject the Epistles of Paul, and to condemn the validity of
his doctrine. Nor did they hesitate to go further, and grant that, admitting that
the passage in Corinthians was a free quotation from Isaiah, they should have to
reject that as well. They even went so far as to bring Eusebius under suspicion,
and to hint that he had willfully perverted ecclesiastical history.

34The apocalyptic, ethical work, known as the "Shepherd," had quotations neither
from the Old nor from the New Testament; there is no lack of references in it, however.

35See, for example, chap. 35: "While we put away from us all injustice
and wickedness, avarice, contention, cunning and deceit, slander and calumny, blasphemy,
pride and self-seeking, ambition and vanity: for they who do such things are displeasing
to God, and not alone they who do them, but they that have pleasure in them who
do them." Comp. Rom. i. 29, et seq.

36In chap. 46: "Woe to that man:
it were better for him if he had not been born, than that he should offend one of
my chosen ones: it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he
were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of my little ones." These words are cited expressly on the "saying
of our
Lord;" they disclose, however, much more clearly the very phrase taken from his
lips and repeated in the apostle's tradition, than the use of the similar passages
in Matt. xxvi. 24; xviii. 6;
and Luke xvii. 2.

37"That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. . . . The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit."

38"For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

39So, for example, Niedner's History of the Christian Church, p. 206: "The first, the greater, at the
time of Antoninus Pius, in 138 or 139; the second, the smaller, under Marcus Aurelius,
soon after 161." The same statement is made by Neander (Gen. Hist. of the Christ.
Rel. and Chur., 3d ed. i. 1, p. 364, et sq.): "Since in the superscription he does
not speak of M. Aurelius as Cæsar, it is probable that it was written before his
promotion to the imperial dignity, which took place in 139." Thereupon he alludes
to the "greater difficulty" which the determination of the time when the shorter Apology was written cost him, and states
that he could
come to no decision respecting it.

40The passage (i. 46) runs, "In
order that it may not be said in senseless perversion of what I have stated respecting
Christ's being born under Quirinus 150 years ago, his teaching what may be called
his system under Pontius Pilate, and the inference which might be drawn that all
men born before his time were free from guilt, I will meet this matter at the very
outset." Every one can see in these round numbers, and in this mode of expression,
how little the writer meant to assign a definite date to the composition of the
Apology. Still, the year 147 is the one which, according to our ordinary computation,
is assigned as the date when it was written. That in the Apology of Marcion the
subject is alluded to as one occupying the public mind, has no vital relation to
the time which we have specified, although to the statement of Irenæus that Marcion
was in Rome with Cerdo at the time of Hyginus (generally set between 137 and 141),
must be added that of the Arabic biographers of Mani, according to which Marcion
came into notice in the first year of Antoninus Pius, 138: for the year 139 can
not be coupled with this event. That Justin cites in the Apology his work against
Marcion ("and the Marcionites" does not appear in in the
title), is said without truth. For in i. 26 he alludes to his work "Against all
Heresies," not to that "Against Marcion;" the latter is cited by Irenæus, iv. 6: 2, after a citation of the first-named
work of Jerome in the catalogue. One circumstance opposed to this is not to be overlooked.
If, with the pushing back of the first Apology to the year 147, the connection of
the second and the first be insisted on, and the latter is regarded as a mere appendix
to the former, the assigning of so early a date to the former becomes the more improbable
from the fact that Justin alludes in the same to the persecutions of Crescens following
him even to his death. This seems to me to give more decisive evidence against the
connection of the two, than the existing reference in the second to what is said
in the first does for that connection.

41If the freedom be taken to
come from this date down to 150, there is an equal right to go back several years
before 147.

42By way of illustration, we may cite the passage which
is given three times in the Dialogue (chaps. 76, 120 and 140), "They shall come
from the east and from the west, and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into
outer darkness." This coincides literally with Matt. viii. 11
and 12, excepting that in the latter we have the reading "many shall
come." In like manner in the Dialogue (chap. 107) we have, "It is written in the
Memorabilia, that your country folk asked him and said, 'Show us a sign.' And he
answered them, 'An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there
shall no sign be given them but the sign of the prophet Jonas."' This reply of the
Lord coincides literally with Matt. xii. 40, with the mere use of "them" for "it."

43Respecting Luke xxii. 44, it runs, for instance, that Justin alludes
in the Dialogue (chap. 103) to the sweat which ran down in great drops while Jesus
was on the mount of Olives, and, indeed, it is stated with express reference to
the "Memorabilia composed by his apostles and their companions." Twice (chaps. 76
and 100) he cites as a saying of the Lord: "The Son of man must suffer many things,
and be rejected by the scribes and Pharisees (chap. 100, 'by the Pharisees and scribes'),
and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." This agrees more closely with
Mark viii. 31 and Luke ix. 21, than with
Matthew xvi. 21; only in Justin the reading
is the "Pharisees" instead of the "elders and high priest" (as in Matt., Mark, and
Luke), and in like manner "be crucified" instead of "be slain."

44Among these is Theodoret's
Hæret. Fab. ii. 2, according to which that which
is said everywhere else respecting the Gospel of the Hebrews is asserted to have
been in use among the Nazaræans. Eusebius reports (Hist. Eccl. vi. 12) the judgment
of Serapion, bishop of Antioch, regarding this matter. The latter found the most
of it conformable to the true faith, but detected here and there something superadded
even in the sense of the Docetes, which he ascribed to the influence of that community
in Rhossus in Cilicia, where he found the book in use. Origen, in his comment on
Matt. xiii. 54, et sq., states that, like the work of James, this reports the "brethren of Jesus" to be children of Joseph by a former marriage.

45A few examples may illustrate the character of the argument between Justin and the
Clementine Homilies. Both Justin and the psuedo-Clement concur in this: "Let your
yea be yea and your nay nay; whatever is more than this cometh of evil." In Matthew,
however, it stands thus: "But let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay;
for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil." The first of these forms coincides,
however, almost literally with that which is found in James v. 12, "But let [ἤτω,
Justin and the pseudo-Clement ἔστω] your yea be yea, and your nay, nay." Further,
we have in Justin, i. Apol. chap. 16, "Not all who say unto me, Lord, Lord, shall come into the kingdom of heaven, but they
that do the will of my
Father who is in heaven. For he who heareth me and doeth what I say, he heareth
him that sent me." In the Homilies (8: 7) it runs, "Jesus said to one who often
called him Lord but did none of his commandments, 'Why callest thou me Lord, Lord,
and doest not what I say?"' Herewith compare Matt. vii. 21, " Not every one that
saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth
the will of my Father which is in heaven." In like manner, Luke x. 16, "He that
heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth
me despiseth him that sent me." For the last clause the Cambridge Codex, with three
old Latin manuscripts, offers the reading, "But he who heareth me, heareth him who
sent me." Another well accredited reading of the greatest antiquity adds to the
standard version the words, "And he that heareth me, heareth him that sent me."
They take out, however, from Justin (and the Homilies) the phrase, "and doeth what
I say," in order to show a reference to some other source. Two other examples which
illustrate this matter will be found in the following note.

46 It
is very doubtful whether from the way in which Justin cites Matt. xi. 27, and especially
in view of the transposition, we are right in forming conclusions as to a source
different from the Gospel of the church, in spite of the
close resemblance between the Homilies and Justin's citation. The passage runs in
Matthew, "No one knoweth (ἐπιγινώσκει, several very
ancient authorities γινώσκει,
but Clemens of Alexandria often, Origen often, Irenæus often, and Didymus, ἔγνω,
'knew') the Son but the Father; neither knoweth (as before) any man the Father save
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" (but Clemens of Alex. often,
Origen often, Irenæus twice, and Tertullian, "and to whom"—Irenæus "and to them
to whom " the Son may reveal him). In Justin (Dial. 100, 1st Apol. 63) we have "No one knoweth (twice 'knew') the Father save
the Son, nor the Son save the Father,
and those to whom the Son shall reveal him." In the Homilies xvii. 4, xviii. 4 and
13, "No one knows the Father save the Son, as also no one knoweth the Son (οἶδεν,
xviii. 3, 'nor knoweth any one the Son) save the Father and they to whom the Son
will reveal him.' Epiphanius has this transposition (in the fourth century) seven
times in eleven citations, and twice does it occur even in Irenæus, who in a third
place still has a reading which is peculiar to the Gnostics. We may notice the other
details of this verse, in which very early changes of the text are unmistakable,
without having to say, This is the canonical, this the heretical text. Compare in
this passage my Greek Testament, eighth edition, first part. So in Matt. xxv. 41: "Depart (πορεύεσθε) from me, ye accursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Justin (Dial. 76) and the pseudo-Clemens
have, "Depart (ὑπάγετε) into outer darkness which the Father has prepared for the
devil (pseudo-Clemens 'Satan') and his angels." Here not only has the Sinaitic
Codex the same expression ὑπάγετε, but the Cambridge, which is allied to it, together
with the oldest Latin witnesses, and Irenæus and Tertullian as well, have also,
"which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels." So, too, from the
passage in the Homilies xviii. 17, "Enter through the strait and narrow way, through
which you will pass into life," there has been an attempt to draw an inference in
favor of an extra-canonical source; but several of the oldest witnesses to the text,
among them the Sinaitic Codex, lead to the supposition that Matt. vii. 13 and 14
was read at the most remote period as follows: "for broad and wide is the way,"
"for strait and narrow is the way," instead of "for wide is the gate and broad
is the way," "for strait is the gate and narrow is the way."

47Throughout
the whole Gospel of John this exclusively Johannean designation does not appear
again; it is found only in the Apocalypse xix. 13,
and as the "Word of life" at the beginning of the Epistle of John. Is it to be expected that Justin, if he did indeed draw
from
John, would use this term exclusively or with marked signs of preference?

48Comp. Volkmar, Ursprung unserer Evangelien, p. 95: "Justin contains the
root of that which is. cited in the Gospel of John, the beholder of the Lamb (Rev.
v. 12; i. 5), or rather, Justin himself appears as one of the sources in favor of
the later transformations of this latest Gospel." "Much more clearly does the most
exact trial reveal this: that the one who tells of the Logos follows him who teaches
regarding the Logos, the post-John follows the martyr substantially in all things;
and it is beyond all doubt that Justin at least never saw this new Gospel. So far
as the formula is concerned, it is not only wholly possible, but even probable,
yes, the one thing probable, that the one who tells of the Logos was not only really
but was also recorded to have been in the school of Justin, the teacher of the Logos."

49The word πηρὸς has definitively and preferably the signification
"blind," as the explanations in Hesychius and Suidas show; so too the whole passage,
belonging here, Constitut. v. 7: 17, where the blind man of John's Gospel as well
as of Justin is called ὁ ἐκ γενετῆς πηπὸς.

50In both passages Justin
has the literal expression of John ix. 1,
ἐκ γενετῆς, which is almost never
elsewhere used in reference to miraculous accounts of the Gospels. Justin, too,
in his Apology, puts it in immediate connection with the blind, after naming the
lame and the palsied. The same seems to be true, too, of the passage in the Dialogue,
although the expression is capable of being connected with the deaf and the lame.

51The emphatic expression of John and Justin,
ἐκ γενετῆς, does not
appear here, but ἐγεννήθην.

52That the translation of John found
a place in some of our manuscripts of the Septuagint, is no less than an evidence
in favor of a primitive translation followed by Justin and John, and at variance
with the text of the Seventy. Naturally Tertullian (de resurr. carn. 26) as well
as Theodotus (excerpt. 62) follow John's Gospel; whereas another passage of Tertullian
(de carn. Christ. 24, also adv. Marc. 3, 7, and adv. Iud. 14, both as far as "tribus
ad tribum") attaches itself rather to the Apocalypse i. 7. The seventh chapter of
the Epistle of Barnabas must also be brought into connection with the same passages
of John.

53The form retained in our translation, "be born again,"
which is in accordance with the Vulgate, is literally justified by, and is significantly recommended in the answer of Nicodemus. So, too, the explanation of the new birth made by Jesus, in the fifth
verse,
to Nicodemus, is much more closely allied with being "born again" than with being
born "from above." Many commentators, however, ancient as well as modern, prefer
the expression "from above." If, however, this reading is to be taken in the sense
as if the expression of Justin did not conform to that of John, and therefore discloses
another origin than John's Gospel, it is singularly thought possible to decide how
Justin was obliged to understand John's expression. But see the next note.

54In order to deny the connection of the Justinian quotation with the passage
from John, it has been asserted that the expression used in the first, the "kingdom
of heaven" (βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν), is not Johannean. But the same expression is
so strongly authenticated in the following fifth verse, by the Sinaitic Codex, by
the Docetes in Hippolytus, by a newly discovered fragment of Irenæus (in Harvey,
p. 498), by the apostolical constitutions, and by Origen (in the Interpres), that
it must be regarded as in the original. (Accepted in 1864 in my synopsis.) I must
remark in addition, that the fragment of Irenæus has ἀναγεννηθῇ (born again) instead
of John's γεννηθῇ: it shows how much it lay at heart with Justin and others
to give the idea of John's γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν
(born anew) by ἀναγεννηθῆτε
(born again).

55For this view is claimed the similarity, also, which
the quotation in the pseudo-Clementines, xi. 26, has with that of Justin: "for thus
says the prophet, 'Verily I say unto you, except ye be born again with living water
in the name of the Father, ye can not come into the kingdom of heaven."' The significance
of this similarity is to be inferred from what has been expressed in the previous
notes. That the earlier expressly denied dependence on John's Gospel is to be discerned
in the newly discovered close of his Homilies, may be seen further on. Compare what
is said under the head "Naasenians."

56John uses the expression "kingdom
of God" only in iii. 3; it is often met, on the contrary, in Luke, both in the Gospel
and the Acts; often, too, in Mark, and several times in Matthew.

58In the same
sense the passage in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Philadelphians appears to have authoritative weight: "while
I curse myself before the Gospel, as the body of Jesus, and before the apostles
as the elders of the church. But the prophets we will love because they have prophesied
of the Gospel and have hoped and waited for the Lord." By the expression the "Gospel
as the body of Jesus," in its connection with the apostles and prophets, is probably
to be meant the written Gospel in the hands of the church.

59See my Notitia
editionis cod. Sin. cum catalogo codicum, etc., p. 58 et sq. The MS. of the Gospels
indicated under No. 2, in my collection of Greek MSS. dating probably from the ninth
century, contains in three passages of Matthew the parallels of the Hebrews' Gospel
(called τὸ ἰουδαϊκόν). At Matt. iv. 5, we have "to Jerusalem," not "into the holy
city." At xvi. 17 is the reading υἱὲ ἰωάντου (son of John),
not βαριωνᾶ (son of
Jona). At xviii. 22, in the Hebrews' Gospel, after the words "seventy times seven,"
the addition, "for in the prophets, too, after that they were anointed with the
Holy Ghost, was sin found" (literally the "word of sin,"
λόγος ἁμαρτίας). This
remarkable passage was given by Jerome in the Latin form. At xxvi. 74, it is asserted
that instead of the words "then he began to curse and to swear," the Hebrews' Gospel
reads, "and he denied and swore and cursed." Such a parallelizing of special passages
as we find here would be irrational, yes, impossible, had the Hebrews' Gospel not
the same character, the same tone, and in the main the same language, with that
of Matthew. And if some of the patristic quotations from it do not seem to give
special support to this view, it is not to be forgotten that these citations must
be made where there are deviations from Matthew's reading, and that they are represented
to us as such.

64See Philosophum. vi. 35. Literally the
passage runs: Therefore all the prophets, and the law spoken of as Demiurgos, a
foolish god, sunk in folly and ignorance (ἐλάλησαν ἀπὸ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ
. . . μωροὶ οὐδὲν εἰδότες). On this account, according to Valentine, the Saviour says, "All
that before me," etc.

65Appeal is made especially to i. 8: 1-4, and
8: 5; yet in the former of these only the three first Gospels are referred to, in
the latter only the last; moreover, they are alluded to only by Ptolemy, whose name
is given in the Latin text ("Et Ptolemæus quidem ita;" in the Greek text these
words are lacking) at the end of the account. At 8: 1-4, however, Irenæus refers
to the Valentinians, not to Valentine. Can it be said, however, that 1-4 is the
master with his pupils, and that in the fifth section only the pupil is meant?

71But is the real meaning
of Κέρδων διαδέχεται Ἡρακλέωνα, Cerdo follows
Herakleon? Is it not rather, Cerdo
follows in my work on Herakleon? If any one should happen to be pleased with this
burlesque style of exposition, he will scarcely be able to persuade others of its
excellence. Another discovery on the same side deserves equal credit. Hippolytus
alludes to a contention between the two wings of the Valentinian school in these
words: "The adherents of the Italiotic faction, to which Herakleon and Ptolemy belong, say
thus; the adherents of the oriental faction, to which Axionikus and Bardesanes belong,
thus." "Over this," he goes on to say, "they, and any body else who likes to, may
quarrel." From this the inference is to be drawn not only that this "they" relates
specifically to the above-mentioned heads of factions, but the word ζητείτωσαν,
"may quarrel," indicates that these persons were still living and contending at
the time of Hippolytus. Who could doubt after applying this test that Marcion and
Tertullian were contemporaries, since the latter writes, de carne Chr.: "On such
grounds hast thou probably ventured to put out of the way so many original writings
respecting Christ, Marcion, in order to disprove his existence in the flesh. On
what authority hast thou done this? I ask. If thou art a prophet, then prophesy;
if an apostle, preach openly; if a follower of the apostles, hold fast to them;
and if thou art a Christian, believe what is transmitted to us. But if thou art
none of these, I might rightly say, then die, for thou art already dead; for thou
canst not be a Christian if thou hast not the faith which makes one such."

72See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 7: φησὶν (Agrippa Castor) αὐτὸν εἰς μὲν τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τέσσαρα
πρὸς τοῖς εἴκοσι συντάξαι βιβλία. Even if nothing. more
definite is to be determined respecting the book of Basilides, it is a fact of weight
that Agrippa Castor had already made use of the same expression, from which we
learn with certainty that some centuries later he indicated the collective character
of our Gospels.

73When the apostles were asking whether it is better
not to marry, the story is that the Lord answered: "Not all can understand this,
for there are eunuchs who are so from their birth, others are compelled to be so,
and others still have made themselves eunuchs for the everlasting kingdom's sake."
The last words are supplemented by what is found in Clemens. In like manner the
same expression is cited by the Nikolaites in Epiphanius 25:6. Another extract found
in Clemens "from the 23d book of the Exegetica of Basilides," contains no passage
to be compared with this, nor does that in the Archelaus-disputation.

74On this account he says, "Do not throw your pearls before swine, nor give that
which is holy to the dogs."

75 That Jerome (in the pref. to Matt.
and likewise in his translation of the first Homily of Origen on Luke, according
to Jerome, also, Ambrosius on Luke) mentions an original Gospel of Basilides, probably
rests only upon the acceptance of the 24 books of the Gospel as of a Gospel in a certain sense apocryphal; we must therefore
consider the secret communications of Matthew, which according to Hippolytus were
extolled by Basilides and his followers, as that Gospel of Basilides. See vii. 25. "As it is written, 'And the creation itself groaneth and travaileth
together, waiting for the manifestation of the children of God."' (Rom. viii. 22
and 19.) "That is the . . . wisdom of which he says the Scripture asserts, 'Not with
words which human wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth."' 1 Cor. ii. 13.
Reference is made to the same in Eph. iii. 3 and 5, and 2 Cor. xii. 4.

76See vii. 26. "That is it, he says, which is written: 'The Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, . . . and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."' The allusion
to Matthew is in vii. 22, and relates to the account of the star seen by the wise
men.

77See vii. 20. "Basilides, therefore, and Isodorus, Basilides'
own son and disciple, assert that Matthias transmitted to them certain secret communications
which he had received from the Saviour as a special charge. We shall see how openly
Basilides as well as Isodorus and their whole crowd of followers calumniate not
only Matthias but the Saviour also." This is at the commencement of his
representation of Basilides, and his school. And just so often as he has occasion,
in what follows, to mention Basilides, he is to be understood as alluded to in the
same strain as at the outset.

78See Theodoret. Quæst. xlix. in libr.
iv. Regum: "On this account I believe that the Ophites are called Naassenians."
The only mention of the Ophites in Hippolytus is viii. 20:
Εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔτεραί
τινες αἱρέσεις ὀνομάζονται
Καϊνῶν, Ὀφιτῶν ἢ
Νοαχαϊτῶν (Νοαχιτῶν?) καὶ
ἑτέρων τοιούτων οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον
ἥγημαι τὰ ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν λεγόμενα ἢ
γινόμενα ἐκθέσθαι, etc. From this there can
scarcely any inference be drawn, except that to Hippolytus the name of Ophites seemed
quite secondary compared with that of Naassenians.

79The same division
of the sentence is followed by many of our oldest textual documents, namely, the
oldest patristic extracts.

80We do not add to the above all the
peculiar Gnostic explanations appended to the passages in the original.

81In connection with these extracts we must call particular attention to
the fact that they quite often unite a free transposition of the text with a strictly close repetition of
the words. They reveal in this a striking similarity to the citations of Justin.
The same kind of quotations from Matthew and the other synoptic Gospels compel us
to draw an immediate inference as to an extra-canonical source. Does not the analogy
with these Gnostic and almost contemporaneous extracts from John show how little
such a hasty conclusion as to the Justinian citation is justified? Or are we, in
the case of the quotation given above from John vi. 53, to draw a conclusion as
to that extra-canonical source, because, in entire analogy with Justin's quotation
from John vi. 51, the concluding words, "ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven,"
are given instead of John's "you have no life in you"?

82With
reference to this, see a previous note. Tertullian adv. Marcion, i. 19, writes:
Cum igitur sub Antonino primus Marcion hunc deum induxerit. . . . The determination
of dates in Marcion's works is a matter presenting the gravest difficulties. Although
the "invaluit sub Aniceto" of Irenæus iii. 4: 3 is not to be applied to his appearance
at Rome, yet there is a contradiction still remaining involving a statement of Clemens
(Strom. vii. 17), who places Marcion before Basilides and Valentine. As the latter
position appears to be sustained by the recent striking discovery of a memorandum
of Philastrius (hær. 45, qui, i. e. Marcion, devictus atque fugatus a beato Johanne
evangelista), . . . so the same appears to be corroborated by the recent exhuming of
the unquestionably ante-Jerome prologue to John, of which I shall have occasion
to speak when I come to the Papias problem. Manifestly we have to deal with a primitive
tradition running hack to a time antedating Marcion's earliest activity and his
removal to Rome.

84See Iren. iii. 1:1 (also
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 8): Et Lucas autem, sectator Pauli, quod ab illo prædicabatur
evangelium in libro condidit. Tert. adv. Marc. iv. 5. Nam
et Lucæ digestum Paulo
adscribere solent. In like manner Orig. in Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vi. 25; Eus. iii.
4 and Hier. de viris illustrib. cap. 7: in all these three passages the assertion
is distinctly made that it was then understood that Paul indicated Luke's Gospel
when he spoke of his Gospel. Rom. ii. 16. Here belongs also Ps.-Orig. Dial. contr.
Marcionit., sect. i. (Or. opp. ed. Delarue, vol. i. p. 808), where, to the question
of the Orthodox man who asks, "Who wrote the Gospel of which thou sayest that it
is the only one?" the Marcionite replies, "Christ," and to the second question,
"Did the Lord himself write 'I was crucified and rose again on the third day'?"
the answer is, "That was added by the apostle Paul."

85See A. Ritschl
(Prof. at Gottingen) in the Jahrb. f. deutsch. Theol. 1866, 2. p. 355: so is he
(i. e. Prof. Tischendorf) unable naturally to convince himself that in a remote
province like Pontus there could not be without a degree of personal fault a more
limited acquaintance with Christian books than in other provinces of the church.

86Had the Gospel of John appeared in Gottingen or in some other celebrated
University-city of Germany, I should have been more able to take this charge home
to myself.

93See
Ritschl in Jahrb. für deutsche Theol. i. a. 1. "The African was, however, great in
his malicious perversion of the assertions of his heretical opponents, and whoever
has followed the course of his onslaught upon Marcion must know how much he had
to draw from Tertullian's expression, in order to establish the historical fact
which he wanted to make good. If Marcion complained of the depravatio evangelii
and gave himself out as the emendator evangelii, he meant by
evangelium the regula fidei,
Christianity as a common belief; which
he wanted to purify from the Judaic additions made by the anti-Pauline school.
And since Marcion. did not defend the Gospel canon which was known to Tertullian,
the latter drew the inference that he was opposing the value of this collection
on the ground of being a reformer of it.

97Otherwise the Montanists
and their most decided followers must have met in their rejection of the Gospel
of John. There is not only no support for this view, involving as it does the grossest
contradictions, but it contradicts as well what Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Eusebius
have recorded respecting the connection of the Paraclete with the Montanist prophetic
spirit. And had the Montanists thrown away the Gospel of John at the outset, how
would it be clear that in Tertullian, the reformer of Montanism, we find (without
the least trace of a contrast to the earlier Montanism) the Gospel of John standing
in the closest connection with Montanism? Besides, all which is expressed in the
passage of Irenæus applies just as appositely to the opponents of Montanism, as
it is inapposite and incomprehensible when it is made to refer to the Montanists.

98Neander (Hist. of the Christian Church, 1856, 3d ed.) remarks in allusion to the
Irenæus passage,
which he understands just as I do: "Irenæus, from whom we receive our first knowledge
respecting this party [the Alogians], assuredly says too much when he states that
they rejected the Gospel of John in consequence of the passage relating to the Paraclete.
That passage alone certainly could not have led to this, for they only made use
of it, as was the case with others, to limit it to the apostles, in order to take
away the support from beneath the Montanists. But since they, if those words of
Christ were brought against them with a Montanist interpretation, stigmatized the
whole document which contained them as not genuine, the inference was a quick one
that, in consequence of a kind of legerdemain only too common in theological discussion,
they had in consequence of this passage rejected the whole Gospel."

100Irenæus states (iii. 3: 4) that the story was repeated
after Polycarp that John once encountered Cerinth while bathing, but instantly left
the bath with these words, "Let us get out; the bath might come to pieces with such an enemy to truth in it as Cerinth is."
That two
hundred years later Epiphanius attributed this anecdote to "Ebion" has no weight
when set over against the authority of Irenæus. For the statement of Epiphanius
(hær. 28: 2) that Cerinth once had communication with Peter, and that he was one
of those who criticised his relations with the Gentile centurion Cornelius, there
is no earlier voucher.

101According to 2: 27, Celsus suffers his
Jews to be told that Christians changed and corrupted the "Gospel" for polemic ends.

102Mary, poor, living by the work of her own hands, is said to
have been driven away by her husband, a carpenter, in consequence of an adulterous
connection with a soldier named Panthera; and the story is that Jesus hired himself
in Egypt in consequence of his poverty, and learned secret arts there.

103See Origen 2: 13, where the Jew of Celsus says, "I might bring forward many
things which were written of Jesus, and which are strictly true, though differing
from the writings of the disciples; yet I will leave this on one side."

107That there is an allusion to the Marcionites does not
do violence to this determination of the date; still, mention is made of the heresy
of Marcion as early as the first Apology of Justin.

108In 1851
appeared in the Hague a prize essay written by me in 1849: De evangelior. apocryph.
origine et usu. I hope to publish a revised edition of it for the use of learned
readers.

109Those who care to go further into this matter I must
beg to see in the original Greek how the passage runs in Justin, in Luke (i. 30
et sq.), and in the Protevangel (see my elaborately annotated Evang. Apocr. 1853,
p. 21 et sq. Protevang. chap. xi.).

110Justin has it: The Spirit
of the Lord shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee;
therefore that which shall be born of thee is holy, the Son of God. Luke says: The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The pseudo-James has
it thus: For the power of the Lord shall overshadow thee; therefore shall the holy
thing which is born of thee be called the Son of the Highest.

114Would one accept a closer
relation between the Protevangelium and the Gnostic book of Mary, there would be
a certain probability in giving the heretical Gnostic production such a dependence
upon the half-Catholic book of James as is manifested in the many instances of extra-ecclesiastical
literature depending upon that of the church. The hints given by Augustine in the
twenty-third book against Faustus would also have weight in this regard, while those
too of the Gnostic work called De generatione Mariæ have similar value. Mary was
represented in this as a daughter of a priest Joachim of the tribe of Levi.

116For a full characterization of this matter, the passage from Hilgenfeld may have
so much appositeness as to admit of its being quoted. "It is certainly true that
the present form of the Protevangel, while alluding to John and his parents without
describing his birth more closely, is incomplete, and indicates more than it tells;
but since the Gnostics in their Γέννα Μαρίας gave an account of the dumbness which
came upon Zacharias, the suspicion is not risked that the primitive draft of the
Gospel contained an account of those antecedent events. The suspicion may not be
ventured; it is entirely without support. For the story of Zacharias's dumbness
stands in the Gnostic production completely isolated; it has not the slightest analogy
either with Luke or with the Protevangel. If the latter points to something beyond
itself, it is at any rate clear that our canonical Gospels, including that of Luke,
stand in the background. On the other hand, there is a close connection established
with the Gnostic primitive form of the Protogospel: "the same is manifestly received
only in a revision, worked over after the canonical Gospels mainly, causing it thereby
to lose, as it would seem, many of its peculiarities."
But may not then the Book of James have a like close connection with the canonical
Gospels, taking into account the agreement with them of its whole nature and purport?
Further on, we read: "The admission that Justin made use of such an ancient Protevangel
may be allowed if it be held as probable that such a production, bearing among the
Gnostics the title Γέννα Μαρίας, contained a genealogy of Mary." After further
remarks there follows: "All the more attractive therefore is another trace to which
Origen leads us. In the passage where he alludes to the Gospel of Peter and the Protogospel of James, he speaks of them both
as bearing the same testimony. But
how would this be if both Gospels should prove to be closely related? How if in
the Protogospel of James the preliminary history of Peter's Gospel—for there can
scarcely be a doubt that there was such a preliminary history—were accepted? Is
not this more than building on the sand?"

117The first reference
to Justin appears, as Hilgenfeld was the first to remark, in the document addressed
to the congregations at Lyons and Vienna about the year 177. Allusion is made there
(Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 1: 3, et sq.) to the martyrdom of Zacharias. Tertullian in
the Scorpiacum contr. Gnosticos, chap. 8, refers to the same thing, only with more
definite and positive language. Clemens Alexandr. alludes to the circumstances connected with
the midwives. Strom. vii. page 889 in Potter. Origen is the first who mentions the
work as the book of James.

118We pass over the story of the death
of Zacharias in the Protevangel to Matt. xxiii. 36. If this can be so understood
as if affording an historical basis for the passage in Matthew, it would strengthen
the proof of the antiquity of the Gospels which we derive from the document of James.

119A third reference must be accepted in the thirty-eighth chapter,
where he in like manner cites Is. lxv. 2, and 1. 6: "I gave my back to the smiters
and exposed my cheeks to blows:" see also the words already cited of the xxii. Psalm,
"They cast lots," etc., in conjunction with Psalm iii. 5, "I laid me down and slept;
I awaked," etc., and Ps. xxii. 8. He makes this close to the prophecies: "and this
was all done by the Jews to Christ, as you can learn" (here we have this express
declaration) "from the Acts compiled under Pontius Pilate."

120Instead
of ἄκτα we have the specific word ὑπομνήματα. The same title, prepared too for
the official report of Pilate, appears in the Præsidial Acts relative to the martyrs
Tarachus, Probus and Andronikus. See my Evv. apocr.
p. lxii. In the same sense it is used in a homily inscribed to Chrysostom (Chrys.
opp. tom. v. p. 942) and in the Martyrium Ignatii, chap. iii. But with this we
must reconcile the expression ὑπομνηματικαὶ ἐφημερὶδες, which Philo uses (de legat.
ad Cajum 25) in reference to the reports which were sent by Alexander to the emperor
of Rome. The oldest Latin title, found in Gregory of Tours, is the Gesta Pilati.

121The thirty-eight years and the healing on the Sabbath are taken
from John's narrative, v. 2; that about the man who was carried by, from Matthew
ix.

123&gt;On scientific grounds it is not
to be excused if one in learned investigations follows in the old rut and speaks
of the Gospel of Nicodemus. Compare my re-establishing of the old title and the
investigation respecting it in the Prolegomenon of the Evangelia apocrypha, p.
liv. et sq. It corresponds best with what was said above respecting the use of the
word ὑπομνήματα, if we say the "Acts of Pilate." The Latin designation, Gesta Pilati,
also answers well to this.

126Of later writers Epiphanius
admits (hæres. L. Quartodec. i.) that appeal was made to the Acts of Pilate in order
to establish the time of Jesus' death, it being given there as the twenty-fifth
of March. He adds, however, that he had found copies where the eighteenth was assigned
as the date. The first date is found also in our texts.

128It will
gratify the wish of the reader if I insert here a portion of the text of the work
itself. We select for this purpose the whole of the third chapter, tinged as it
is with the coloring of John: "And full of rage Pilate came forth from the hall
of judgment (the Prætorium) and said to them, 'I take the sun to witness that I
find no fault in this man.' But the Jews answered and said to the governor, 'If
this man had not been a malefactor, we should not have delivered him over to you.'
Pilate answered, 'Take him away and judge him after your law.' The Jews
answered, 'It is not permitted to us to put ally one to death.' Pilate said, 'Did
God order you not to put any one to death and not me as well?' Pilate went again
into the judgment hall and called Jesus to him privately, and asked him, 'Art thou
the king of the Jews?' Jesus answered him, 'Speakest thou that of thyself, or have
others told it thee?' Pilate answered Jesus, 'Am I a Jew? Thy people and the high
priest have delivered thee over to me: what hast thou done?' Jesus answered, 'My
kingdom is not of this world; for if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants have fought that I should not be delivered over to the Jews: but now is
my kingdom not thence.' Then spoke Pilate unto unto him, 'Thou art a king, then.'
Jesus answered him, 'Thou sayest that I am a king. For this cause was I born and
am come into the world, that every one who is out of the truth may hear my voice.'
Pilate asked, 'What is truth?' Jesus answered, 'The truth is from heaven.' Pilate
asked again, 'Is there no truth on the earth?' Jesus answered, 'Thou seest how those
who speak the truth are brought to judgment of those who have power on the earth."'
At the close of the fourth chapter we have: "But when Pilate saw the throng of Jews
around him he perceived that many of the Jews were weeping, and said, 'Not all
the people wish him to die.' Then answered the elders, 'We, the whole people, have come, that he might be sentenced
to death.' Pilate answers them, 'Wherefore should he die?' The Jews reply,' Because
he said he was God's son and a king.'"

131Comp. Hilgenfeld: Kritische Untersuchungen
über
die Evv. Justins, der Clementinischen Homilien und Marcions, 1850 (therefore before
1853), p. 387 et sq. Here an effort is ascribed to the fourth Evangelist to subordinate
Peter to the beloved disciple, and on this account the fourth Evangelist's independence
of Peter's Gospel is admitted, but afterwards every proof favoring the use of the
Gospel of John is denied to the connection of the homilies with him. (Page 346 had
thus decided with respect to the expression, Horn. 3: 52, "My sheep hear my voice":
"It is a question whether the Gospel of John or one still older contained this passage.")
"Against such a use," it goes on literally to say, "stands the glaring difference
in the tendency of both writers, so that in presupposing an acquaintance with this
Gospel one must admit a polemic objective view. Let one imagine an attack made upon the divinity of Christ, and
satisfy himself how such an author could dispose of John i. 1;
x. 33, et sq.; xx.
28. While, in John x. 36, Jesus declares himself substantially as the Son of God,
so that his own assertion is an expression of his divinity, the author of the Homilies
takes the same expression, 16:15, to be a decisive statement of the difference between
Jesus and the Deity. The Lord never declared himself to be God, but the Son of God.
How was it possible, after using the fourth Gospel, to expressly limit the time
of the intercourse of Jesus and the disciples to a single year, and not, as later
teachers have accepted, the time of his public career? How could he besides, while
declaring Peter to be the first fruits and cherished disciple of Christ, so markedly
leave out the Johannean portraiture, and among the expressions used by Jesus regarding
the devil (xix. 2), which he doubtless collects as completely as was possible, how
could he omit such an expression as John viii. 44? The result of our investigation
is in a word this, that even in Clementine's Homilies the Gospel of Peter, in contradistinction
to Justin and some farther continuations, is used; with him Matthew, perhaps Luke
also, but certainly not the Gospel of John."

132With the utmost
probability Celsus made use (about 150) of the epistle of Barnabas. That he specifically
speaks of the apostles as πονηρότατοι, Origen infers (contr. Cels. i. 63) from the
use of the epistle.

133The text however is not to be judged from
what is published, nor is that of Dr. Hilgenfeld, who has contented himself with
unscientifically repeating it just as it was left in the edition of two hundred
years ago.

134See Beiträge i. a. 1.: "These words do not suit if
they be made with Orelli (Selecta pp. eccl. capita, etc.) to refer to the apocryphal
fourth book of Ezra which Barnabas elsewhere cites." One would draw the inference
from this which Volkmar insists should be deduced from Credner's words, quite in
antagonism to what Credner himself asserts.

138The statement given
above of the heathen scoffer Celsus merits unquestionable pre-eminence over this
discovery; for according to him the expression, "It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,"
is but another form of Plato's "It is impossible that he who is extraordinarily
rich should be extraordinarily good." See Origen contr. Cels. 6: 16. As for other
matters, however, the crafty trickery of Volkmar does not derive any reflected credit
from Renan, as it was said to do in the earlier editions of this work; it should
have the claim allowed it of having anticipated Renan, since the latter work appeared
in 1863, whereas Volkmar's preface to "Esdra Propheta" is dated October, 1862. Honor
to whom honor is due.

139So Volkmar i. a. 1. p. 161. "118-119 Alexandrine
epistle named after Barnabas, with a knowledge of the Gospel of Matt. as a new
work with the most ample use of Matthew, but with the sayings of Christ taken only from the hallowed Old Testament."

142Not less than in Barnabas does it become clear in Justin that
he makes the brazen serpent of John's Gospel the type of the cross. Even Justin's
expression, Dial. 91, appeared to have flowed from a recollection of John:
Προσφεύγουσι τῷ τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον
υἱὸν αὐτοῦ πέμψαντι εἰς
τὸν κόσμον, for John iii. 17,
οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ θέος τὸν
υἱὸν αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν κόσμον, is closely connected with
iii. 14. Naturally,
with Barnabas there is the same process of divination applied that we find earlier
among the Clementines. So Volkmar i. a. 1. p. 67: The author "seems not to depend
at all upon the Sap. Sal. 16: 5, which had already prefigured the typical character
of the serpent. But least of all upon the Logos Gospel (John iii. 14), for his special
comparison of the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness with the lifting up
of Christ (on the cross and thus to the heaven) is wanting here: and how could one
who in this connection read 'in order that every one who should, believe in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life' discard such a saying as the above?
No one of us (!) could do it." In the same fashion Volkmar shows in his Append.
to Credner's Gesch. des Neutest. Kanons (1860, p. 372) that Tertullian had not been
acquainted with the first Epistle of Peter, or, if he could not deny to Tertullian
acquaintance with the work Adv. Gnosticos, asserts that it was only subsequently
to 207 that he was familiar with it. He writes, "What apt proofs it (the epistle)
offers to the opponent of the Gnosis de resurr. carn. . . . the Montanist moralist
even, de pudicit . . . or de habitu mulier. . . . How was he able to pass over Peter
in the letter, when going through the entire list of prophets and apostles? An Epistola
Petri has no place in his Instrumentum Apostolorum, as he draws it up in both its
chief forms." Pity that that whole course of acute reasoning finds its answer in
the fact (as Dr. Aberle has already shown in the Theol. Quartalschrift, 1864, 1)
that its first propounder has overlooked. Tertullian's complete work, De oratione,
where (Semler, p. 15, chap. xiv.) express reference is made to the "præscriptio
Petri," in 1 Pet. iii.

143Irenæus says (hær. iii. 3: 4 and ii.
22: 5) that he lived in Trajan's day, 98 to 117. Eusebius (in the Chronicon) sets
his death at the year 100, and Jerome (de viris illustrib. and elsewhere) 68
years after the death of Christ. The Chronic. Pasch. has 72 years after the ascension of Christ.

144The change of arrangement in several of our oldest Itala manuscripts
(Matthew, John, Luke, Mark) does not rest on a chronological basis, but, according
to Tertullian, upon the connection, first of the two men who were apostles, then
of those who were helpers of the apostles.

145This is in accord
with the statement of Eusebius iii. 37: 2, that already at Trajan's time (98 to
117) a part of the missionary activity inspired by Christianity consisted in the
diffusion of the written gospel narratives (καὶ τὴν τῶν θείων
εὐαγγελίων παραδιδόναι γραφήν).

146Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις. Rufin, following the ancient
usage, translates λόγια by oracula. It is extremely probable that the book of Papias,
true to the chiliastic standpoint of the man, was largely devoted to the prophecies
of the Lord. Christian usage, however, gave the word a larger significance, so that
the sayings of the Lord and of the apostles, although not having the precise character
of prophecy, are yet called by that name, and the Holy Writ was designated as θεῖα λόγια.
Papias makes use of the same expression in conveying a notion of the contents
of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, where the narrower conception
conveyed in the word "prophecy" does not do justice to the meaning.

150To understand who these presbyters were,
it is not necessary to understand that they were personally connected with the immediate
companions of the apostles, as Irenæus (iv. 27: 1) shows: Quemadmodum audivi a
quodam presbytero (later it runs: inquit ille senior) qui audierat ab his qui apostolos
viderant et ab his qui didicerant. But Irenæus (v. 36: 2) refers to the "presbyters
" without any additional designation.

151As witness to his existence,
Dionysius of Alexandria (232, superintendent of the Alexandrine School of Catechumens)
quotes in Euseb. vii. 25: 6 the mere fact that there were two monuments at Ephesus
inscribed with the name of John, and Eusebius busies himself (iii. 29) more closely
with attempting to give more weight to the testimony of Papias to the existence
of the second John; in support of which he brings forward, evidently following the
lead of Dionysius, the existence of the two Johannean monuments at Ephesus.

152In the last passage we have τὰ λόγια without any further designation;
he refers however to what goes before, where we haveτῶν κυριακῶν
λογίων.

154The memorandum in a Latin Oxford codex of the fourteenth century, respecting
the four Marys, on whose margin is written the word Papias, is unquestionably to
be referred to a Papias of the middle ages, if there is any meaning to be ascribed
to marginal words. In such excerpts, particularly as they are given in the Catenas
and similar works, the addition of the author's name is a matter of the greatest
untrustworthiness.

155So e. g. Zeller: "The silence of Papias will always afford conclusive evidence against the authenticity of the Gospel of John."
Theol. Jahrb. 1847, p. 199.
Hilgenfeld: "Had Papias said the least thing respecting a Gospel of John, Eusebius
could not possibly have overlooked it, and as he examined into the works transmitted
by John, he could not have kept silence had there existed a written Gospel from
his hand. Die Evangelien, p. 344. Strauss: "The silence of Papias respecting John
as the author of this Gospel is the more weighty in that he not only expressly assures
us that he has carefully looked into what was left behind by John, but that, as
the bishop of Asia Minor and an acquaintance of Polycarp, the disciple of John,
he would consequently know something more definitely respecting the apostle, who
spent his later years in Ephesus." Leben Jesu, p. 62. Renan: "Papias, qui avait
recueilli avec passion les récits oraux de cet Aristion et de ce Presbyteros Joannes,
ne dit pas un mot d’une Vie de Jésus écrite par Jean. Si une telle mention se fût
trouvée dans son ouvrage, Eusèbe, qui relève chez lui tout ce qui sert
à l’histoire
littéraire du siècle apostolique, en eût sans aucun doute fait la remarque." Vie
de Jesus, 3d éd. 1863, p. xxiv. Volkmar: "We may therefore certainly presuppose
that had Eusebius found a trace of the use of the anti-chiliastic Gospel of Papias
he would all the more eagerly have brought it out;" and this opinion is preceded
by the remark that "Papias edited his collection and interpretation of the Lord's prophecies about
the year 167 of our era." Ursprung uns. Evv. p. 59.

157That 1 John
and 1 Peter can not be taken out of this category Eusebius himself declares, vi.
14, when he speaks of Clement. (See text immediately following.) From the representation
of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the seventh book of his Topographia Christiana we learn
in like manner that the authenticity of all the catholic epistles was contended
against.

158The statement of Andrew in the sixth book that Papias
bore witness to the trustworthiness (τὸ ἀξιόπιστον) of the Apocalypse neither coincides
with the assertion that Eusebius overlooked the testimony borne to the Johannean
Apocalypse by Papias, nor, still less, with the suspicion uttered by Volkmar (p.
59) that Eusebius passed over this evidence "on account of his partisan feeling
against the Apocalypse." It is decisive against this suspicion that Eusebius has
mentioned Justin and Theophilus as credible witnesses for the Apocalypse.

159Hilgenfeld sought to take away
the force of this proof, and wrote in his journal, 1865, pt. 3, p. 335: "Manifestly
it is quite a different thing if Eusebius does not hold, in regard to the epistle
of Polycarp to the Philippians, the testimony in behalf of the epistle of Paul to
this community, an epistle which is unquestionably Pauline in its origin; and merely
remarks, though expressly, the use of the first epistle of Peter, which, although
a subject of dispute, unquestionably belonged to the much contested catholic epistles."
In more prudent fashion, however, Hilgenfeld mentions to his readers the epistle
to the Philippians merely, to whom Polycarp himself writes, and does not mention
that the extracts are taken from many other Pauline letters.

160As
lately as 1865, Hilgenfeld wrote: "How can the inference be drawn otherwise than
that Eusebius searched carefully in Papias also for all evidences of New Testament
writings, and failed to communicate anything respecting the canonical fourfoldness
of the Gospels, and especially respecting the Gospel of John, only because he found
no evidence? " "Who does not see that the fourfoldness of the canonical gospels
had no existence at the time of Papias?"

161See Volkmar i. a. 1.
p. 61: "It is an entire distortion of the case for Tischendorf to try to trouble me with the ' absurdity' of the notion that
Papias
knew nothing of Luke as well: he may just as well have been acquainted with Luke's
Gospel as with John's, but may have looked down upon both as too free, Paul-like,
anti-Judaic-Christian and anti-chiliastic." "Although he does not defend himself
exactly so in respect to the Gospel of Luke, the reason is that it was not enough
held in common regard as Luco-Pauline, and he did not need his millenary traditions
to defend himself against such a non-authority. What follows, therefore, from this
nearer examination of the Papias contexts in relation to the Gospel of the Spirit's
Parusia? Either he really did not become acquainted with it in his own Hierapolis,
or he did not discover it with the superscription 'according to John,' and certainly
not having canonical authority to be disowned by his silence. His testimony remains
therefore unchanged; it must be taken without evasion. Papias's silence respecting
Luke and John does not bear direct witness indeed for the non-existence of their
Gospels, but for their non-apostolical authority; or rather that both Gospels were
without apostolical authority with the larger number of contemporaries for whom
Papias gathered and expounded his chiliastic traditions."

162During
my recent visit to Rome (March, 1866), Cardinal Pitra, the learned Benedictine,
called my attention to this manuscript; yet Cardinal Jos. Mar. Thomasius had already
given place to the prologue accompanying it in his collections (Opp. omnia, tom.
i. Rome, 1747, p. 344), where Dr. Aberle of Tubingen had noticed it, and learnedly
discussed it in the first number of his Quarterly, 1864, pp. 1-47.

163It is further stated: Disscripsit vero evangelium dictante lohanne recte.
That the writer of this prologue wanted that this should be understood of John,
the prologue prefixed to the Greek Catena text to John, and edited by Corderius,
proves, which runs thus:
ὑπαγόρευσε
(sic)τὸ εὐαγγ. τῷ ἑαυτοῦ μαθητῇ Παπίᾳ εὐβιώτῷ τῷ Ἱεραπολίτῃ. It is clear that this traditional statement is not to be reconciled
with Eusebius. Directly subsequently in the prologue it runs: Verum Marcion hereticus
cum ab eo (codex abe) fuisset improbatus, eo quod contraria sentiebat, abiectus
est a Iohanne. Is vero scripta aut epistolas ad eum pertulerat a fratribus qui in
ponto fuerunt. It has already been stated that this tradition respecting
Marcion is not an isolated one.

165It has had a great many
stadia to run through from its ancient use down to the present use by the
Romish Church. After going through several hands in the third and fourth
centuries, and after repeatedly undergoing revisions in accord with the Greek
text, Jerome formed his text from it, not without reference moreover to Greek
authorities which were allied to it. The use of the Romish Church gradually made
this the Vulgate. It had, however, experienced many modifications, when the
Roman Curia, towards the end of the sixteenth century, took advantage of the
general diffusion of manuscripts to execute an official revision of the Vulgate,
and it is this which now is authorized in the Roman Catholic Church.

166It
is an interesting memorial of the negative school of criticism at the present
day, that its representatives, in part at least, take particular pleasure in
basing their defense upon just those weighty scripture passages respecting whose
want of authenticity the criticism which adheres closely to documentary
evidence, as gained from the most recent discoveries, leaves no doubt at all.
Among such passages may be reckoned the close of Mark's Gospel, the narrative
respecting the adulteress in John, and the story of the descent of the angel
into the pool of Bethesda in the fourth verse of the fifth chapter of the same
Gospel. Certainly there can be no doubt that it far better
subserves the ends opposed to apologetics to leave such apocryphal passages as
these in both the Gospels mentioned, than by their omission to seem to give
advantage to those who claim the apostolical origin of those Gospels. That that
alliance between legitimism and its most determined opponents repeats itself on
a political field, argues a wicked misunderstanding on the part of scholars of
reputed orthodoxy.

167Τὰς
λοιπὰς γραφὰς
in this connection must be referred to other New Testament Scriptures. If those
of the Old Testament were meant, the Pauline epistles would here be clearly
placed upon the same footing with the Old Testament.

168Verse 25, against
whose genuineness most serious objections have long been expressed, has now in
the primitive Codex Sinaiticus the most weighty authority against itself. (It
has been an error that down to this time Cod. 63 has been cited in the same
sense.)

169For
the purpose of superseding Grabe's extremely imperfect edition of this important
work, I have long been making the requisite preparations in the English and
French libraries. It was my good fortune to discover in 1844 an
entirely unknown manuscript bearing on this matter, in the island of Patmos.

170We can understand the remark of I.
Nitzsch in 1810 (de Testam. xii. Patriarch. etc. Comm. critica, p. 17), that the
author of this Testament could not have lived in the first century, since he
alluded to almost all the books of the New Testament. "Si ante
casum Hierosolymorum floruisset, hunc non tam diserte indicasset; sin omnino
sæculo primo, non cognovisset ad quos fere omnes allusit Novi Testamenti
libros."